First Impression
by allakimbo
Summary: A new ship with new characters and a few familiar faces as well. Newly commissioned First Contact vessel USS Temura finds that people from the warp-verge society they are studying have been abducted-by why, and by whom? COMPLETE! :)
1. Introductions All Around

Disclaimer: I do not own Star Trek or any of the characters created therein.

A/N: Each of the characters in this story is representative of something I particularly like or find important in the Star Trek universe. But more on that later.

* * *

First Impression, Chapter 1: Introductions All Around 

He stared at the viewscreen in front of him, weighing his options. The room around him was almost completely devoid of furniture or decoration; its metal walls amplified and echoed every sound he made. The distant thrum of the engines purred comfortingly beneath his feet, giving his surroundings their only spark of life. The room was dark now, the soft glow of the viewer his only light. He was supposed to be asleep, but he got very little sleep these days. He ran a hand through his dark hair, making it stand slightly on end and giving him a devilish appearance.

He read through the names again as they flashed across the screen: the manifest for the USS _Temura_. Funny that a ship he'd never seen had come to mean so much to him.

He dismissed the first set of names: the scientists. The biologists, zoologists, and geologists were probably not much to be concerned about. None of them had rebellious reputations, certainly. Even if they did, scientists had protocols, a system. They were relatively predictable. He moved on.

Lieutenant Taurik. Species: Vulcan. Gender: Male. Position: Propulsion Specialist.

The second son of a family of prominent diplomats—his father had been the ambassador to Andoria for 17 years. Interesting. He was transferring from the USS Enterprise as a warpfield expert. _Engineers_, he thought ruefully, moving on.

Lieutenant Una Magis. Species: Human. Gender: female. Position: Away Team Coordinator.

The screen went blank for a moment, then turned to static. _Must be a glitch_, he thought, _or this thing is finally dying_. He slapped the side of the viewer impatiently, though he knew it would do no good. Unlike everything else on the ship this computer was old and unreliable. There was little chance that his dodgy equipment would go missing, and less chance that anyone would bother trying to break into his personal files. The downside was the complication that older technology brought. The viewer finally made up its mind to snap back into focus and he continued to read.

Away Team Coordinator wasa relatively new position on only a few Starfleet ships. The list of missionsMagis had worked on and designed was quite extensive; her rate of success was extremely high. It appeared that the one thing Lt. Magis truly excelled as was adapting to any situation. He was worried, very worried, about this one. She had a past, to put it mildly.

Lieutenant Vesta Tirat Shee. Species: Andorian. Gender: Female. Position: Chief of Security.

Lieutenant Vesta would have been mortified to know that a stranger knew her entire name. For Andorians, this was a strictly followed taboo: only one's close family or mate should know one's full name. He noted that she also had a background as a non-commissioned officer: before going to the academy she served for two years aboard the USS _Hood_ as a Transporter Chief. Vesta was someone he felt he should not cross, if possible. She might be rational but if she sensed a threat she would be merciless.

Minister Mirasta Yale. Species: Malkorian. Gender: Female. Position: Special Diplomatic Consul.

Ah, Special Consul. She wasn't Starfleet, but Mirista Yale had agreed to serve as an envoy for the Federation. When her own world had abandoned warp technology at the brink of First Contact, Yale had asked for and been granted the opportunity to leave her planet and become part of the Federation herself. She might be useful—she was the one that would be most easily convinced and would serve as a direct line to the captain's ear.

Commander Paul Bohemir. Species: Human. Gender: Male. Position: First Officer.

Bohemir was a standard officer. A widower for the past 6 years, spent the last 10 as first officer on his current ship—it seemed less and less likely that he would be getting his own command, but that did not appear to bother him. His list of commendations was long, his reviews exemplary. He would lay down his life for this crew all if asked, and they would all certainly do the same for him. Ho hum. Yawning, he continued down the list.

Now this one was interesting:

Commander Japel Kordant. Species: Cecestian. Gender: Male. Age: 32. Position: Science Officer.

Cecesta didn't often allow it's citizens offworld, certainly not to join an organization with which they were only nominally involved. Kordant must be a remarkable character indeed—he could not recall ever having come across a Cecestan science officer before. The intense environment and stronger gravity of his homeworld must have made adjusting to Federation ships and planets quite difficult; the man at the viewscreen wondered how he managed.

Next came the ship's doctor and the chief engineer:

Dr. Helen Kincaide (Rank: Commander). Species: Human. Gender: Female. Position: Chief Medical Officer.

Kincaide was typical but for one detail: she pioneered cosmetic enhancement and transformation for use in field survey and security operations. In other words, Dr. Kincaide could make people into chameleons.

Lt. Commander Ito Arima. Species: Human. Gender: Male. Position: Chief Engineer.

Arima's record was decidedly Feng Shui: there was very little to it but for the lauds for his work. Words of praise were sparse and to the point. Arima was hard to read, which was unsettling.

The last name on the screen scrolled into view.

Captain Sovak. Species: Vulcan. Gender: Male. Position: Captain.

Sovak's age was listed asa mere 91 years—relatively young for a Vulcan captain. Sovak had the potential to be one of the greats, especially given his ship's new mission. The computer listed commendations for his work in the Romulan Sector during the Dominion War, for developing diplomatic relationships with the Klingons—he had even worked with the Cardassians. He was sorta like the Vulcan version of Captain Kirk. Or maybe Picard, since so much of the Vulcan's work was diplomatic in nature.

He sat back in his chair, rubbing the bridge of his nose—one of the few indicators he ever gave of being tired or irritated. There was still time to get some sleep before his shift began. He had learned all he could from the files he had requested. As a precaution he transferred the data to an equally outdated removable media format—a small disc no more than a couple of centimeters in diameter—and wiped all remnants of the information from his computer core. He flipped off the screen and made his way to a corner of the room where a flat mattress lay uninvitingly.

_Next time you volunteer for something_, he told himself for the hundredth time as he crawled in and tried to get comfortable, _ask about the accommodations_.

Well, he'd be gone soon enough anyway. If the crew of the _Temura_ weren't idiots.


	2. The Important Thing Is, I'm Meeting New ...

Disclaimer: I do not own Star Trek or any of the characters created therein.

A/N 1: My sincere apologies for any spelling or grammar errors last time. The only one I caught was Mirista's name: at one point I have her down as Mirasta. Sorry about that, Mirista.

A/N 2: Each of the characters in this story is representative of something I particularly like or find important in the Star Trek universe. I told you about Sovak last time, this time: Vesta. I love the Andorians as they've been explored in the latest Trek incarnation, so of course I had to include one here!

-

First Impression, Chapter 2: The Important Thing is, I'm Meeting New People

U.S.S. Temura

Unaware that another person had been doing the exact same thing only hours earlier, Captain Sovak sat back in his chair and calmly regarded the small viewscreen over his steepled fingers. The screen glowed brightly in his dimmed ready-room, personnel files dancing before his eyes as he assessed his new crewmembers. As he digested their background information, he tried to gain a sense of who they were as individuals and who they could become as a team. It was early for that, though.

The low level of light was punctuated by a few flickering candles and softly curving sculptures. Like most Vulcans, Sovak did not care for ostentatious display but did appreciate aesthetic furnishings and the effect they could have on people. Since few humanoids other than Vulcans were trained to ignore minor mental or physical discomforts, Sovak had found that creating a non-threatening atmosphere helped diffuse potentially stressful or confrontational situations before anyone even spoke. Given the function of this ship, it had seemed only logical to put this theory into practice. He had decided that this was still reasonable, so despite changes in many other areas of his ship his ready room, conference room, and many of the public areas of the ship maintained their comforting appearance. He was glad of this—or as glad as a Vulcan could be—because there had been a _lot_ of changes as of late.

Starfleet had decided to re-define the mission of his ship; naturally a refit and new crew assignments had followed. After finishing its five-year mission as a diplomatic vessel Starfleet had decided that the _Temura_ should now take a more active role in learning about and communicating with new cultures. She was now to be a First Contact vessel—the first in the fleet. As it had been explained to him by several ambassadors and Federation council members, the _Temura_'s new mission would be twofold: to examine pre-warp humanoid cultures and to gather information on cultures with whom Starfleet was ready to initiate First Contact. His mind turned once more to his new personnel—how would they handle the diverse situations they were sure to encounter?

He flipped quickly through the files again, taking in the new manifest. Sovak had handpicked them all and had confidence in their abilities. His first officer had staunchly approved his captain's choices—comforting given the fact that Bohemir had a reputation for being startlingly honest. They would work.

Well, at this point they simply had too, as all the new assignments were now on board. Only one slot stood vacant: Field Engineer. This was a new position specially created to trouble-shoot for away teams and to develop technology solely for field use. It had to be someone with a knack for gadgetry and who wouldn't mind getting off the ship now and again. Well, actually, this person would be getting off the ship quite frequently. Sovak had someone in mind but had thus far been unable to locate…

His comm badge chirped.

"Bohemir to Captain Sovak." His first officer sounded tense—but that was most likely from trying to keep track of the Starbase 12 engineering crews running around the ship.

"Go ahead."

"There's an urgent transmission for you from Starfleet Headquarters."

Sovak touched the keypad in front of him, wiping the personnel files from the viewscreen.

"Put it through," he instructed Bohemir calmly. What Starfleet had in mind for him now, he would not attempt to guess.

-

Sovak took a moment to run his eyes around the conference table before getting started—this was the first time his new crew was gathered together. Starfleet was not allowing them any get-to-know-you time to get used to one another before sending them out. This first mission was going to test their ability to work as a team—and they had barely just met.

"I realize this is quite a bit more sudden than we had expected," he addressed his crew, "but it appears that Starfleet has a problem it would like us to attend to." Sovak activated a holographic viewer on the center of the table—the _Temura_'s holotechnology was the most advanced in all of Starfleet—and sat back slightly in his chair. The viewer resolved into a spherical shape, clearly an M-class planet.

"Dukinar," Dr. Kincaide flatly identified the planet. "Correct," Sovak nodded. "I know you have all received profiles on the cultures nearing warp capability that Starfleet is preparing to make First Contact with so you should be familiar with the basic situation."

Minister Yale nodded. "Dukinar is only a few months away from making it's first manned warp flight. Less than a month ago unmanned remotely piloted shuttles broke the warp barrier, demonstrating that a humanoid could survive the experience. This space flight has been highly anticipated for many years by both the people of Dukinar and the Federation." There was a glimmer of empathy in her dark eyes. She had once been in a very similar situation and could well imagine their excitement and impatience for the next step in their exploration of the galaxy.

Sovak was more prosaic. "Their position between the Klingon and Romulan Empires is tactically sensitive. Starfleet has had observers on the planet for a number of years now, preparing for this First Contact. It had been expected that this First Contact would go well…"

"'Had'?" asked Kincaide. She had known Sovak for 12 years and had no problem interrupting his thoughts. The Vulcan, likewise, did not miss a beat.

"Two nights ago one of our anthropology units reported strange energy surges in Tula, the capital city of the southern continent." The holographic sphere began to rotate slowly, a large red dot on the southern continent revealing the location of the city in question.

"Further investigation revealed that the surges were unauthorized transporter beams. None of the science stations reported any transporter activity. Contact has been made with everyone Starfleet had on the surface, so all of our people are where they are supposed to be and none of them appear to be responsible for this. Once this had been determined the location of the beams were pinpointed." The holograph turned into a 2 dimensional map of the city, a series of small red dots indicating where transporter signatures had been found. Examination of the law enforcement logs in Tula have revealed that several people were reported as missing either that night or the next morning. Two witnesses claimed to have seen someone literally disappear before their very eyes."

"How many were taken?" asked Mirista, looking stricken. "And by whom?"

"Thirteen were taken altogether. Beamed off the planet to we know not where," Bohemir supplied. "As for who…the transporter signatures were odd. A similar transporter pattern has been found on two other worlds, both worlds that have only acquired warp drive within the past two years. Around a dozen people were taken from each of those worlds as well."

"For what purpose? What use could anyone from these worlds be to kidnappers off-world?" Una asked.

Vesta spoke up. "There have been reports of ships being attacked in various areas—usually areas with some sort of natural astronomical phenomena that hinder sensor range—throughout the Beta Quadrant for almost a year now. I have a friend in Starfleet intelligent, we trade notes," she shrugged to her companions questioning looks. Sovak motioned for her to continue.

"I don't know if these pirates are the same as the ones who attacked Dukinar, but Starfleet Intelligence thinks there is a roving black market—possibly several—operating somewhere in the quadrant."

"A black market?" Kincaide asked. "Marketing…people?" The doctor was disgusted at the concept of trading lives for profit.  
"People, goods, ships, parts—I imagine that they market almost anything," Vesta confirmed. As a security officer she was less shaken by the humanoid capacity for cruelty and greed.

"Defying a Federation mandate against slavery and trading in a quadrant monitored by us, the Klingons, and the Romulans." Bohemir wondered at their bravado.

The captain nodded at the Andorian. "Yes, Lt. Vesta, you are correct in your assumption. Starfleet Intelligence thinks the Dukin and those missing from the other two planets have been taken for the express purpose of sale on this 'black market.' By taking people from planets that have just acquired warp drive they skirt the issue of directly violating the Prime Directive while preying on peoples unequipped to defend themselves from such an attack."

"Cowardice!" Vesta scowled.

"Yes," Sovak continued. "But smart. Technically, once a planet in Federation space has reached warp capability and we have initiated First Contact, non-Federation cultures have the right to interact with them. The penalty for kidnapping is still there, but it carries a less severe punishment."

Bohemir nodded. "With Dukinar they got sloppy. They must have assumed that the early shuttles were manned and that we had made First Contact by now. Lazy on their part."

"We have ten days to locate the missing Dukin and return them to their planet before they make manned warp flight and before our scheduled First Contact. Since one of the men taken was the head engineer of their warp program it just may be that they will not make warp flight unless we can find him and return him," Sovak told them. "After ten days the Federation will approach the Councilor of Dukinar and inform him of the situation. Regardless of the success of our mission, the Dukin will be informed about their missing people. The Diplomatic Corps and Starfleet Security have made it clear, however, that they would much rather have the Dukin in hand before this is done."

Already the minds around the table were out of the abstract and into the practical, on the trail of the missing Dukin.

"If they were that sloppy with the transporter there's a good change they were with the ship too. We might be able to find a warp residue," Japel was configuring the sensors to the task in his mind.

Arima, silent to this point, finally spoke. "Our new propulsion specialist can assist you with that," he told Japel. "We might be able to get some more information about their transporter if we run a spectral analysis on the energy signals recorded by the science stations."

"We should also plot the other kidnappings and the known raids on ships throughout the Beta Quadrant, see if there's some sort of pattern there," Vesta said, "and then do a little more searching on nearby worlds for "unexplained disappearances" or descriptions of transporter-like activity. I have a hard time believing that these raiders only just started doing this."

Sovak was clearly pleased that his new crew was so quick to take appropriate actions. "Excellent. We'll arrive at Dukinar in just under 24 hours. Commander, I want you and Lt. Magis to go to the surface and find out what you can from the Dukin about what happened that night. Every clue will help." He stood up, indicating that the meeting was over, and his officers followed suit.


	3. Just Because We're Allies Doesn't Mean I...

Disclaimer: I do not own Star Trek or any of the characters created therein.

A/N: Each of the characters in this story is representative of something I particularly like or find important in the Star Trek universe.

Poor Taurik. We last saw him aboard the Enterprise as a lowly ensign in Engineering. I thought his interaction was great and worth pursuing in a story where he could really shine. Here's a chance for the audience to get to know him…even if Vesta won't.

First Impression, Chapter 3: Just Because We're Allies Doesn't Mean I Like You

Una was having trouble adjusting her eyes to the light. It was so dim, even in areas with artificial lighting like the inside of this transport terminal where she waited for Commander Bohemir to meet her. Dukinar's atmosphere was perfectly safe and breathable but it drowned out much of their sun's light. Ultraviolet and evolution allowed a diverse plant and animal life to develop on the planet but most of their day was shrouded in twilight. Dr. Kincaide had simulated the features of a Dukin but the artifice was not really functional.

Her human features were almost unrecognizable. Her brown eyes were now grey and the corneas and irises were about twice their normal size—Dukin eye color only ranged in shades of grey and light blue and were well adapted to a low light environment. Her brown hair was now a much longer jet black that was almost wiry in texture. It sprang not only from her head but all the way down her neck to the top of her spine. Her skin pigment was now far paler than her natural tone, as though she hadn't seen the sun in years. Implants and simulated skin had been used to build up her cheeks and jaw to angular protrusions. The Dukin diet of coarse grains and vegetative matter had caused their people to develop powerful chewing muscles along the sides of their jaws, resulting in much more prominent cheekbones and jaw lines.

Una squinted a little then stood as she finally made out Bohemir walking toward her. So far she liked working with him—he understood how to run a good mission. He didn't question her ability or look over her shoulder, just gave her an assignment and let her do her job.

"What did you find out?" he asked.

"I talked to neighbors of one of the women taken. They said that they called the authorities when they noticed the bright flashes of light—they were afraid it might be a fire. When they got to her rooms she was nowhere to be found. They didn't see anything firsthand."

Bohemir was silent as he waited for two people happily chatting to pass them. "The stories I heard were much the same. Bright flashes of light, then nothing."

"Sir," Una asked, "what kind of transporter causes light distortion?"

"I don't know," Bohemir shook his head, his mane of synthetic grey hair swishing down the length of his back. "Have you located the local authority headquarters?"

Una nodded and pointed to one of the waiting transports. "We can take this line and then switch to another that will take us there directly." She handed him a slim metallic card. "Your ticket," she explained.

Bohemir was impressed. So far the young lieutenant had been able to navigate her way through the city—between them they had canvassed all of the witnesses to the event—and now she had figured out the transportation system, all without being able to understand the Dukin written language. Sovak hadn't been wrong, she readily adapted to her surroundings. The transport began to load up and he motioned for her to board.

USS Temura

Although their people were allies now, Lt. Vesta understood why centuries ago Andorians had hated Vulcans. This was not because she was an ardent student of history or possessed a particular empathy for her ancestors. No, her sudden insight into cultural tensions long passed stemmed from the fact that right now she wanted to reach out and strangle the Vulcan sitting across from her.

"Why did Starfleet Intelligence never plot out a similar map?" Taurik asked, scrutinizing her work. 

"They never made the connection between the missing persons and the attacks on ships," she explained patiently. Only her antennae belied her simmering fury. Through them she spoke in a body language that only another Andorian would fully understand—and it was a good thing that other Andorians were not present as they might have been shocked at her language at the moment.

After working on the problem for six hours straight Vesta had made a breakthrough. She had cross referenced the search grid plotted with all the known cases of attacks or abductions with security and police reports from _all_ inhabited worlds and starbases within the sector. There were thirty-one reports of missing persons over the last year and a half 20 of which matched the facts from the Dukin or the other First Contact abductions. These points, once charted, finally revealed a pattern to the attacks. A very lopsided spiraling starburst pattern had appeared as the viewscreen in the conference room now linked the dots from the earliest stardate to the latest.

"Obviously the bandits started with kidnappings from starbases and orbiting stations first then worked their way to planets. Around the same time they began attacking ships as well. From stardate 44908.2 forward there is a relatively regular arrangement based on proximity from the latest victim. I believe we can use this information to predict their next point of attack. They just attacked a planet, so it is likely to be a ship or starbase next."

"We must remember that this is nothing more than a map with points plotted on it. It does seem logical, however there is no other proof to back it up," Taurik said. Vesta's antenna quivered slightly with unconcealed aggravation, though her expression did not change. She was certain her calculations were correct.

"That is true," Sovak agreed. "However, I believe these charts give us a sound starting point. Lts. Vesta, Japel, and Taurik: examine the reports from the ships and starbases that may have been victims. Make a projection as to the probable location or targets of the bandits. Commander Arima, you will assist them from engineering by examining the sensor logs from each location at the time of attack, where such logs are available. When the away team comes back we can lay in a new course based on your predictions."

"Sir," Taurik addressed the captain, "I believe it may also be of use to contact the Klingons and the Romulans and ask if they have had similar incidents."

Vesta bristled. Who did this guy think he was?

Sovak thought for a moment.

"It might even out the pattern Lt. Vesta discovered," Japel nodded.

"Or it may disprove it," Taurik said. "Either way it could provide valuable information."

"But will they want to talk with us is the question." Dr. Kincaide looked doubtful.

"I believe we must ask," Sovak decided. "It is very likely that these pirates have crossed over into their territory. As their range and activities may in fact be a great deal wider than originally suspected, we should inform the Klingons and the Romulans and offer them a place in the investigation. It is unlikely either will accept, but perhaps they will share information as a show of good faith while we conduct our inquiries."

"Transporter room 3 to Captain Sovak," a voice suddenly cut into the room.

"Go ahead."

"Sir, Cmdr. Bohemir and Lt. Magis just beamed back."

"Have Commander Bohemir report to my ready room," he instructed. He returned his attention to those present. "You have your orders."


	4. Get To Know Me Over Drinks

Disclaimer: I do not own Star Trek or any of the characters created therein.

A/N: Each of the characters in this story is representative of something I particularly like or find important in the Star Trek universe. Mirista is another character last seen on TNG in the episode First Contact. I love her character: to me she represents the fascination we all have with the possibility of space flight—of seeing what's out there. I always wondered what happened to her after that episode. Since no one else seemed to mind, I decided to continue her adventures into the unknown!

- 

First Impression, Chapter 4: Get to Know Me Over Drinks

USS Temura, Observation Deck 

"You would have liked the transports, I think they ran on some kind of thermally-generated power. The reminded me of the ground transport on Vulcan a little. Do you want another drink?" Una motioned to Taurik's nearly empty glass with her own.

"No," he told her, adding, "thank you," after a slight hesitation. It was not Vulcan to offer pleasantries such as "please" and "thank you" but many years spent on a deep space science station and various planets had taught him that many species used them. Humans, in particular, seemed to put a lot of stock in "politeness". As Una was both a human and a friend, he was careful not to do something that would be considered a slight. She was the only person on the ship he really knew, having transferred over with him from the Enterprise less than 4 days earlier.

"Suit yourself." She left the table and headed for the bar at the front of the room.

They were seated in the _Temura_'s Observation Deck enjoying their first break in over 8 hours. Taurik had been working with Japel and Vesta on the bridge, trying to figure out where the next attack might be while Una had been compiling the data from the away mission.

"I am more interested in the description of the transporter that was used in the attacks," Taurik said once she had replenished her drink and sat across from him once more.

She shrugged and gazed out the window at the slowly passing stars. The Observation Deck was a half-moon shaped room that appeared to be all curving windows opposite a lush, recessed bar. It was dark but comfortable, burnished metal and polished wood throughout. Exotic plants accented many of the surface, giving it the feel of a dense forest. Una liked it—she suspected its décor was a holdover from the ships former status as a diplomatic vessel.

"You know as much about it as we do. Here's what I can't figure out: why were they so sloppy here? Vesta's report said that the flashes were only reported in a few cases out of the total, but almost every one on Dukinar seems to have had it. That's why there were so many witnesses there, it was hard not to notice those lights!"

"It's a very valid question," rumbled a voice behind her.

Una turned and looked up. And up and up and up. Above her towered the science officer, Japel.

Taurik nodded to the huge man, indicating that he should join them.

"Especially," he continued, "since I've been working on identifying those engine signatures." He handed Taurik a PADD. "Since you're the resident propulsion genius, I'd like to get your opinion on it before I bring it to the Captain."

Taurik took the PADD and studied it intensely for a few moments. 

"The frequency output of their engines is at first glance erratic, however on further investigation you have found that this is not the case." Taurik tapped the PADD's screen, scrolling through Japel's work. "These emissions are actually quite complex. Whoever was created them went to a lot of trouble to cover up their warp signature."

"I wonder why?" Una asked.

"I cannot speculate as to their motivation beyond the obvious: they did not wish to get caught."

_Vulcans_, Japel thought. "Yeah, but look at these readings." He pointed to one of the graphs on the small screen. "This is short-burst Kovlar radiation. Here it's been used to create the appearance of the kind of general reactor decay you might find on an older ship, but it's incredibly difficult to reproduce. Why go to that much trouble to leave behind a false clue? If you have that kind of technology you can probably leave behind _no_ clues."

Taurik was silent for a moment, digesting the information. He stared at the computer readout with fresh eyes, looking for anything else that might be out of place. "There is nothing here to suggest cloaking technology of any kind was used, which would have been an easy way to mask their presence from the planet," he offered. "This entire scenario is illogical."

Japel didn't look happy about this. "That was my conclusion too. Every way I look at this I end up with more questions than answers."

Una grinned. "It's a mystery all right."

"I will never understand the human preoccupation with unexplained phenomena," Taurik shook his head.

"It's not the unexplained part that bothers us," she shook her index finger at him, "it's the finding the answers part we get obsessed with."

"In this case, then, it appears that your excitement is premature."

Japel laughed, a deep rumble in a cavernous chest. It reverberated through the Observation Deck, causing its few other occupants to turn and stare out of curiosity. "You two argue like married humans," he said, shaking his head.

Una's grin widened. "Don't let his father hear you say that, he'd keel over dead from an aneurysm at the very thought."

Taurik was impressive in his emotional control. He had been around Una and other humans enough to understand that jibes of this sort were meant to indicate friendship. "We are not involved in any way," he told Japel before turning back to Una. "My father would be open-minded about any relationship I would have with a non-Vulcan," he informed her solemnly. "As long as the other party fully understood the undertaking."

Una and Japel broke up into laughter at his serious answer to their jest.

-

Vesta, entering the room in search of her investigative partners, watched the scene with a great deal of interest. She didn't like the Vulcan and she wasn't sure about the human—they were clearly friends—but now even Japel seemed to like him. Taurik was the first to notice her and nodded coolly to her from across the room. Caught, she headed for their table.

-  
Taurik saw the Andorian and nodded to her. A look of annoyance crossed her face before she approached. He wondered again why she did not seem to like him. At the conference earlier her distaste had been obvious—she had done nothing to school her antennae responses to his suggestions or analysis of her work. As his father had been the ambassador to her homeworld for many years, Taurik had grown up alongside Andorians as a boy. He knew their subtle and intriguing silent language, though Vesta's choice of…_vocabulary_ surprised him. He wondered if he should tell her that he understood Andorian body language but decided that this might only serve to anger her further, as though he had been spying on her. For a fleeting moment he considered telling her that he thought her mapping scheme was brilliant—he would not have taken the time to comment on it had he not thought so—but dismissed it hurriedly. That smacked of a kind of sentimentalism that he could not bring himself to voice.

"I think I've narrowed down the area they're in," she began without preamble, "however, my model predicts," she glared at Taurik, "that they may not attack again for another two weeks or more."

-  
USS Temura, Bridge

"We don't have time to wait two weeks," Bohemir said as he paced the bridge, though it hardly needed to be said. Vesta's model showed that they would hit a ship and a planet in quick succession, then wait a few weeks until the next strike.

"Then, obviously, we must find a way to track them before then." Sovak examined the readings on the science station computer, arms folded across his chest. "This Kovlar radiation, you said it would be difficult to reproduce. How might one go about it?"

Japel had been thinking about this too. "It would take a huge reactor—honestly, one so big that I can't see how it would launch, much less go unnoticed as it flew through space." The giant man's face crinkled as he thought. "The reactor has to create a gravitational field strong enough to control the radiation in a very small space, otherwise it would seep out into the ship and cause it to literally fall apart in minutes."

"So they would need an extremely powerful warp reactor for a ship of normal size," Bohemir stated. "Where would they get one?"

Taurik spoke up from a computer station nearby. "Sir, I believe the Romulans were working on a type of reactor that might have been able to contain such radiation," he said evenly. "They were working on reactor that could contain the solar equivalent to the energy of a sun and harness it for their engines."

"The experiments on that technology failed—they caused a rift in the temporal fabric of space, if I recall correctly," Japel interjected.

"Yes, I was on board the Enterprise when we came across one of their ships caught in a such a rift. Though it was not originally intended to house Kovlar radiation I believe this warp core could be modified to do so. The core would not necessarily leave a trail in normal space, but it would likely change the quantum signature of subspace particles in the wake of the ship. These changes would be more numerous around charged areas of space, such as ion fields or nebulae. We would need to recalibrate the sensors to pick up the minute traces. "

"The Romulans…" Bohemir looked at his captain. "What did they say when you asked them about attacks in their space?"

"They did not say anything. I was informed that no one had time to speak to me about a matter as petty as a few attacks that I could not say for certain were related. The Klingons said much the same thing, though they agreed to scan the security logs of starbases and planets within the affected region of space." Sovak turned to Taurik and Japel. "How long to modify the sensors?"

Japel did some quick calculations in his mind. "Two hours."

Sovak nodded. "Get to work."


	5. To Market, To Market

Disclaimer: I do not own Star Trek or any of the characters created therein.

A/N: Each of the characters in this story is representative of something I particularly like or find important in the Star Trek universe. Chief Engineers are always central to any Trek story: to paraphrase, "they make things go." We've seen cheery, boisterous, or even hotheaded Chiefs but Arima adds another dimension to the engineer character: he is a sea of calm, unflappable in any crisis.

-

First Impression, Chapter 5: To Market, To Market

A hand clad in a metallic glove landed a hefty blow across his face, sending him backwards into a nearby computer panel. It was on standby, thank god, but his right hand broke through the paneling and was torn on sharp edges.  
He was pulled around by the front of his jumpsuit and braced himself for another blow.

"You…" his attacker's face was contorted in rage. "You…Romulan!" the burly Nausicaan spat.

VeJack straightened himself as best he could and tried to look nonchalant. "Look, you were the one who said we had a deadline. I did exactly what you asked—I don't question orders, remember?" He pointed to a partially healed cut that ran from his left temple behind his ear and into his hairline. The ear was in fact not pointed as a Romulans should be, nor were any of his features discernibly of that race; he looked plainly human. He was always amused by the way people emphasized one side of his heritage or the other depending on their opinion of him at the time.

"How many people saw the transports?" demanded the captain, unable to contain his fury. "Starfleet will investigate!"

"They haven't yet," VeJack shrugged. "They're lazy, you said so yourself. Even if they look into it they can't track—"

The sound of footsteps and the crash of machinery being dropped—and broken—interrupted them. Another Nausicaan and an angry looking Tellerite, their hands full of VeJack's belongings, joined their colleagues on the bridge. The rest of the crew—a Bajoran, a Trill (one of the common Trill, sans symbiant), and a Laeverian looked on passively. They were used to their captain's rage as well as VeJack's incompetence.

"This was everything—we searched his quarters thoroughly," the Tellerite dumped the computer viewscreen he was carrying onto the deck.

"Hey, hey, there's no need for that!" VeJack whined. "You have no right—"

He was silenced by another blow across his face. "I have every right! This is my ship, or have you forgotten?" VeJack nodded, nursing a bloody lip with a bloody hand. This "right" had been outline in the contract he had agreed to before coming aboard.

"It's useless anyway. This computer must be 40 years old. Nothing on it but his personal logs and some engineering plans for his _ship_," the Tellerite grinned over the last word. He thought the half-breed's aspirations of owning his own ship were hilarious.

The Nausicaan captain turned back to VeJack. "We dock at Par'at Nor in an hour. You're off this ship."

It suited VeJack just fine.

-

The Paulson Nebula, beautiful and mysterious, filled the main viewer. Sovak was seated in the captain's chair, waiting patiently while Taurik and Japel finished running a scan on the outer edge of the phenomenon.

To his left Minister Yale say quietly, to his right Commander Bohemir fidgeted as he waited for the results of the survey. The first officer was not good at being idle.

"Sir!" Japel called out from his station. "I think we have something!"

"Engineering, report," ordered Sovak.

Arima answered, his tone even. "I have Commander Japel's data and am running it through the second set of scans." There was a brief pause. "It does appear to bear the signature we have been looking for."

Sovak was relieved and apprehensive at the same time underneath his stoic veneer. They had found what they were looking for, but the nebula would cause subspace distortion that would greatly hinder both sensor and communication ability.

"A perfect place to hide," Bohemir seemed to echo his thoughts. Sovak raised one eyebrow in agreement.

"Ensign, take us into the nebula at half impulse. Mr. Kordant, continue to scan the area. Commander Arima: adjust the sensors to the interference in the nebula as best you can."

Slowly, carefully, they headed into the unknown.

-

"So what exactly did the Romulans and the Klingons say to you?" Bohemir asked before sipping the scotch the captain had offered. Sovak preferred tea himself but felt his first officer would appreciate something stronger to ease the tension of waiting. The alcoholic content had been altered so as to be negligible, but that was not really the point.

It had been almost two days since they had entered the Paulson Nebula and the going was slow. The distortions that prevented subspace communications also made it difficult to read the quantum particle changes on the same level. The sensors needed to be re-calibrated almost every hour, Arima and his team were working around the clock. They had found several possible signatures and were spending valuable time tracking each of them.

Beside Bohemir, Mirista Yale also waited for the captain's answer.

"I told you. They were not interested, they called it a Federation problem. The Klingons have sent information regarding a few possible incidents in their space and the data seems to fit into Lt. Vesta's model. Other than that there is no significant change to the information we already have."

"What about this notion of the Romulan warp reactor?" his first officer asked. "It appears that Lt. Taurik was right about that…what do you think that means?"

"Is it possible the Romulans sold this technology?" asked Mirista.

"It is possible," Sovak told her, "but we must not discount the possibility of Romulan involvement."

"Why would the Romulans be involved in a black market in Federation space?" Bohemir asked. "It seems like small potatoes for them."

" 'Small potatoes?' " Mirista asked.

"Not significant enough to warrant concern," Sovak supplied. "I do not know why they would be involved, but we must consider the chance."

"Sir," a voice broke in, "this is Commander Japel. Sir—we've found them."

Sovak rose and strode onto the bridge, where the tension of the past two days had been replaced by a buzz of excitement. "On screen," he ordered.

He expected to see a ship—perhaps of surprising or unusual design—appear before his eyes, but what showed up against the nebular backdrop of space was far more complicated and staggering than that.

It was an entire space station, a narrow cylinder with tapering edges. A central ring that was connected to the main structure by what appeared to be "spokes" encircled it. Along this ring several ships were obviously docked, though enormous doors probably indicated that many more ships had docked inside the ring as well.

"I'm going to bet that's our market," Bohemir grinned.

-

This was why Una loved being in Starfleet, she told herself as she got ready for the away mission. She was selecting what might be an appropriate outfit for a smuggler or thief from the quartermaster's extensive collection. Beside her Vesta was doing the same, though the Andorian seemed to be enjoying it a lot less. She was scrutinizing three costumes on the computer, obviously at an impasse. Una peeked at the viewer.

"That one looks good," she pointed to the one on the left.

Vesta's head whipped around to look at the human. "I do not require assistance," she said curtly.

Una refused to be put off. She didn't want to go on a mission with someone she'd never even spoken to before—it wasn't a matter of politeness, it was common sense.

"I just say that because it has more pockets than the other two. More places to hide a weapon—and with an outfit like that, people will be expecting you to carry some kind of…protection."

Vesta glared at the screen, not wanting to take the advice. Out of her peripheral vision she saw Una shrug and go back to her own screen. Vesta considered the interaction over.

"Although the one in the middle looks a little like what a Maquis might wear." Una, apparently, did not.

Why was the human going on? Vesta wondered. She looked at her companion, this time really seeing her. Una was flipping expertly through screen after screen, looking for just the right costume. It dawned on the Andorian that of course Una had an interest in what Vesta was wearing…as well as what she would carry, how she would interact—with everything that Vesta and the other members of the team would do on the surface. It was her _job_. She felt a sudden surge of camaraderie towards Una, even if she was friends with the Vulcan. Taurik had made Vesta wary; she could not let that stand in the way of the mission.

"What if I use the top element from that one and the lower half of the one on the left?" Vesta asked in a businesslike tone.

Una sensed a change in the weather and answered in kind. "I think it's good. It's unique but doesn't stand out too much. Perfect," she approved. She motioned to her own screen, where she had built her own outfit. "If I change the coloring of this then it will look like we got the style or material from the same place. As shipmates, that's believable."

Vesta nodded and decided that Una was okay.

"Now what about boots?" Una asked, starting another search.

-

In the main launch bay Taurik was going through a similar process but with shuttlecraft instead of shoes.

The Temura was by necessity a ship of disguise: it could put out sensor data that would make a pre-warp industrial society believe its presence was merely solar radiation, it could use holotechnology to turn into an asteroid, even the shuttlecraft could be physically reconfigured to become an alien vessel.

At the moment Taurik was trying to match the exterior of the shuttle to that of the holographically generated ship's hull, which conveyed a style something of a cross between Nausicaan and Tamarian. Beside him worked the Chief Engineer. His face was expressionless, a direct contrast to his fingers, which conducted their own lively dance over the console before them. The Vulcan and the human worked with little conversation but great understanding between them.

Taurik was checking the nacelle emissions when his comm badge sounded and his friend's voice emerged.

_Magis to Taurik._

"Taurik here." He knew it was not a social call.

Come to the quartermaster's immediately to be outfitted for the away mission. You're coming with us.

"That is…highly irregular," he answered. It was an understatement—he never went on her away missions.

_I know_, she told him, _but we won't be able to scan the station adequately from the ship. I need someone down there who can look for the warp signature of the vessel we've been tracking. We don't have a field engineer yet so you're our man._

Arima, who had overheard the conversation, gave him a nod of confidence. Taurik returned it and headed for the doors.

"On my way."


	6. Old Friends, New Twist

Disclaimer: I do not own Star Trek or any of the characters created therein.

A/N: Each of the characters in this story is representative of something I particularly like or find important in the Star Trek universe. Bohemir is the classic officer: he is dedicated to Starfleet and very, very good at his job. He is a real father figure to the member of his crew, the emotional side of the command structure: a balance to Sovak's more objective logic. A widower, Bohemir finds that he has come to think of this ship and its crew as a sort of family.

-

First Impression, Chapter 6: Old Friends, New Twist

_Identify_, the voice on the comm link stated flatly. It was a male voice and Bohemir wondered if it was a recording. He looked at his shuttle companions, dressed in motley fashion, before answering—

_Identify_, the voice insisted again, the irritation in it indicating that there was indeed someone on the other end of the transmission.

"We are from the vessel _Temujin_," Bohemir said. "We request permission for our shuttle to dock and for the crew to come aboard the station." This was a huge gamble and he knew it. They had no information about the station or how it operated. For all they knew they needed a password or an introduction to get in.

_Temujin, state your purpose at Par'at Nor._

"We understand that your station is the only place in the Beta Quadrant to purchase certain…items…that are not otherwise widely available. We would like to substantiate this claim."

The comm was silent. Bohemir remained calm, but the silence stretched on.

_You may dock at port _lanat tvo, came the reply. _We will search your vessel. Be advised that if our security force identifies you as a possible threat you will be immediately incarcerated and your ship destroyed._

"Acknowledged," Bohemir answered shortly. These guys didn't mess around! He guided the shuttlecraft to the identified port.

-

It looked like a rat on a stick, but he was hungry so he tried it. He didn't exactly know what rat on a stick might taste like, but he guessed that this delicacy was a good approximation.

VeJack had wandered Par'at Nor for hours, watching, waiting. He was now sitting outside a small and rather dingy eating establishment chewing on he knew not what to avoid arousing suspicion. People hanging around here who looked like they were waiting for something were not viewed with trust—and many of the characters that frequented the station were likely to shoot first and ask questions never.

VeJack chewed mercilessly, frustrated that things were moving so slowly. This had been in the works for so long and now that the big finale was here it felt like everything had ground to a halt. Did his colleagues know what they were doing? Were all interested parties truly in place?

He calmed himself by turning his mind to more practical matters. He would have to purchase lodgings for the night and none of the available berths were appealing. Maybe he could find a quiet place on the promenade and catch some sleep before the next sale…

He saw them heading across the crowded open lower level. They moved not as a group but as part of the crowd. VeJack had to give them credit, they didn't look at all like Starfleet—he never would have guessed had he not seen and memorized their faces from their personnel files. He stood, his rat forgotten, and moved to watch them more closely.

He stopped short—VeJack wasn't the only one interested in the band of travelers. Several "undercover" security officers (though, VeJack reflected, perhaps _thugs_ was more accurate) were following them. This was not good. It meant that whatever cover story the Starfleet officers had given, it hadn't been entirely convincing. Pevet had ordered that they be tailed. Any false moves and they would be taken…and sold. One way or another, Par'at Nor always turned a profit.

Two of them—the Vulcan and Magis—headed for the central stairs. A pair of thugs—both appropriately burly, followed at a quickened pace. This was the way to the ships of the more "established" traders. VeJack now had no doubt that their presence here would raise alarm bells, literally. What the hell were they doing?

With little reflection, he went after them.

-

Una was in full mission mode now. There were five crewmates to keep track of now as well as at least a dozen Dukin to find. She and her colleagues fanned out to search the station, she partnered with Taurik, Vesta with Japel, and Bohemir with another security officer, Ensign Sovez.

The station was a meeting place for dozens of species, all apparently willing to buy or sell anything for the right price. Already Una counted half a dozen violations of Federation trade agreements. The petty sales didn't bother her at the moment though—it was the humanoid trade she was interested in.

She made her way to a stairway in the center of the promenade, Taurik following.

"The readings are becoming clearer," he told her quietly as they descended the stairs.

"Have you located the ship?" her voice was barely audible but his sensitive Vulcan hearing picked it up.

"Not yet."

Neither noticed the shadowy figures tracking their movements and matching them.

-

Japel watched with delight as Vesta threw the drunken Bajoran into the wall. She certainly knew how to handle herself, and her bright blue skin and paramilitary outfit had made many of the males they passed want to handle her as well. The Bajoran was the first that made a concrete attempt and he was rebuffed accordingly.

"I'm not interested," she growled. "I'm here on business, not pleasure," she told him, though it was doubtful he was listening any longer. He appeared, in fact, to have passed out.

_Bohemir to away team_, their sub-dural communicators sounded. _We've found the slave market. It's on the upper level of the station. All teams meet us up here._

"Understood," Vesta muttered and turned to Japel…

And found herself face to face—or rather face to _chest_—with an enormous humanoid.

"What do you understand?" a deep voice rumbled. A hand came down on her shoulder, a hand which no doubt would have been used as a launching point for the alien's entire body had Vesta not been immobilized by shock. "You shouldn't cause problems, little Andorian."

The intruder's green hand tightened its grip and Vesta felt herself leaving the ground as he lifted. Before she could react she was tossed aside as her assailant was whirled around and thrown out into the crowd.

Japel offered a hand and helped his shipmate back up and they both stared as the giant green figure scrambled to its feet. He still looked angry but Japel's size was an excellent deterrent.

"Guess now we know who's running the show." Japel took Vesta's arm and pulled her away before she could lose her temper.

"_Orions!_" Vesta hissed.

-

Bohemir was furious and having trouble keeping it in check. He too had figured out who the proprietors of the station were and he was seeing red. Or rather, green. Lots and lots of green. The Orions had signed peace treaty after peace treaty and ostensibly ceased their humanoid trade many years ago. Here they were, though, prodding frightened, babbling aliens onto a pedestal and turning a profit as the bids flew.

Sovez, a fresh-faced security officer with a long braid and a cosmetically placed scar across her nose ("makes me look older," she had explained) was scanning for the missing Dukin when Japel and Vesta arrived a few minutes after his hail. The four of them dispersed through the market to widen their search perimeter.

Most of the humanoids to be sold were being kept in pens in an enclosure at the back of the room, though a few were being transported in from other levels of the station. It soon became apparent that there were slave markets being held in at least two other locations. They would all need to be searched.

"Where are Magis and Taurik?" he asked Japel, mentally divvying up the markets between the away team.

The huge man looked concerned. "I don't know. They didn't come up?"

Bohemir shook his head and tried his communicator again.

"Bohemir to Magis."

There was no response.

"Lt. Taurik, respond."

Lt. Taurik, it seemed, was also out of communicator range.

"Do you know where they were headed?" he asked Japel.

Japel nodded—he had seen them on the stairway. He told Bohemir this.

"Go and check it out," he instructed. "Take Vesta with you."


	7. I Float in Air Around You

Disclaimer: I do not own Star Trek or any of the characters created therein.

A/N: Each of the characters in this story is representative of something I particularly like or find important in the Star Trek universe. Every incarnation of Trek takes the time to introduce us to a new species and their collective traits. Lt. Commander Japel, a native of the planet Cecesta, represents this aspect of Star Trek. He is also a good example of someone whose physical differences don't hold him back. Sure, he has to make adjustments, but they're worth it in the end.

-

First Impression, Chapter 7: I Float on Air Around You

Una fought the urge to test out the echo potential of the vast cavern before them. Taurik had no such problems and was busily taking readings on his PADD, looking for the signature of the ship that had kidnapped the Dukin.

The room was enormous—it looked too big to fit in the station as a whole. It was cylindrical and squat, gleaming metal walls swooping smoothly up to a spiral docking door on the ceiling. There were four levels, each suspended in the center of the room, held in place by spindly walkways that reached out from the entryways along the outer edges of the room. To each of these levels ships were docked—beautiful, obviously expensive yachts, more like. Many of them were pleasure ships, though a few looked like freighters or cargo tugs.

"Anything?" she asked Taurik, willing him to hurry. There was something that wasn't right about this place and she wanted to get out quickly. It was so quiet…

"I believe I have located the ship," he said. He looked up. "It is on the top level."

"Of course it is," muttered Una, craning her neck to follow his gaze and trying to decide if they should go on their own or contact Bohemir. She decided on the former and activated her sub-dural comm. channel.

"Magis to Bohemir."

Nothing.

She tried again: "Magis to Bohemir."

Silence. This was definitely not right.

She was about to suggest that they leave when an alarm began to sound, but like no alarm she had ever heard before. It was loud, to be sure, but her eardrums felt like they were going to explode. She could feel them _moving_ inside her head. She lost her balance and fell to the deck, a wave of nausea rolling over her. Unable to think, Una curled into a fetal position and tried to hold onto something, anything, resembling a coherent thought. Her brain, however had other plans. Recognizing immense sensory overload, it shut down and forced her out of consciousness and into quiet blackness.

-

Taurik could not understand her reaction. Una had crumpled—he had never seen her taken down before, by _anything_. Certainly nothing so inane as an alarm system. The alarm did not affect him, though he did find it mildly annoying in terms of its volume.

He concluded that the sound must be affecting her inner ear and bent to help her up. Obviously their presence had been detected and they had to get out of here. Carrying his colleague, he headed for the door.

His course of action was cut short when several armed humanoids emerged through the entryway. Spotting Taurik and his charge, they lost no time in closing in on them, clearly meaning to apprehend the intruders with force, whether it was necessary or not.

Though Vulcan, Taurik found himself trying to brush away a strain of panic let loose from the pinnings of his emotional control. He willed himself to think clearly, if not entirely calmly. Backing up, he came to the edge of the walkway leading out to one of the ships. He turned and ran down it, still carrying Una.

His pursuers laughed at this—the Vulcan had backed himself into a corner. The tension among them evaporated, leaving behind pure malice. Now they could truly enjoy the chase, like a cat with a wounded mouse.

Taurik could see their point. The ship docked at this level was a C-Class Primer Yacht, built for looks and speed. It was sleek all over, so the chances of jumping onto it were slim. It was hovering some 10 feet off the side of the dock, which meant it wasn't even good cover. There was nowhere to run. Putting Una down, he turned to face his attackers and fight them, whatever good that would do.

One of them slid a small metal object toward the pair, obviously a precursor to some sort of destructive explosion. Without thinking Taurik kicked it back just before it detonated before him. He fell backward, twisting to catch his balance. His foot stepped off the edge of the catwalk and he felt himself falling to the next level, which he knew was a very long way away. Ever the Vulcan, he calculated that his life would end within 10 seconds or so. He experienced, therefore, a millisecond of uncharacteristic surprise when his fall was cut short at 3 seconds and he crashed into something very hard and slippery. He did not have time to contemplate how this was possible before losing all conscious thought.

-

Japel found Taurik in the docking bay, seemingly suspended in midair. Vesta was still on the promenade, making sure no one followed them and asking the locals if they had seen their colleagues.

Commotion from the next level of the vast chamber told the science officer that the Vulcan had fallen from that area. He also realized that the situation was quite precarious: Taurik had fallen onto a cloaked ship. Japel had no way of knowing its exact shape and therefore if Taurik was in immediate danger of falling off.

Before he could adequately assess his next course of action, guards from above began to search the rest of the dock—he would have to act quickly. There was really only one thing for it.

Japel leaned down and pulled up one of his pant legs, revealing a slim metal band that ran around his boot mid-calf. Attached to this band was a small control box. He pressed a series of buttons on the box, then lifted his other pant leg and did the same once more. He stood up and waited.

In a few seconds the effect took over and he felt himself growing lighter until his feet left the floor. He hovered for a moment, adjusting his position, then pushed off and floated through the air toward the suspended engineer.

When he was halfway to his target two Orion guards burst into the room and skidded to a halt. The scene that confronted them was too unbelievable—a mountain of a man _flying_ through the docking bay! And seemingly without any technological help!

Luckily for Japel, they didn't have time to recover and end his flight. Vesta has followed them inside and made short work of them. A swift kick to the back of the knee coupled with a roundhouse for good measure brought one of them down, then a direct hit to the jaw of the other did the trick nicely. Vesta smiled and flexed her hands.

"Our communicators don't work in here. I think they have Una—" she stopped, unsure what she was witnessing. Her crewmate appeared to be, well, to be _levitating_.

"Japel?" she asked.

Japel had made it to Taurik and was in the process of maneuvering the young man over his shoulder. Tentatively he put a foot on what he predicted was the hull of the ship and pushed off, heading back to the walkway.

He landed a few feet away from Vesta. "I don't know what his injuries are, but he's breathing. We should get him out of here."

Vesta did not seem to hear. "What was that?"

Japel sighed. He hated explaining it, so he did it quickly as readjusted the bands around his calves and reactivated them. "Cecesta has a much higher gravity that most M-Class planets." Vesta nodded: she knew this. "So our bodies are much more buoyant in "regular" gravity. I wear these adjustors to keep me grounded most of the time," he pointed to the metal bands. "I think we should get Commander Bohemir and get out of here."

Vesta still boggled at her colleague's strange physiological advantage, but managed to get her mind back to the mission.

"They have Una. They're going to start looking for her companions. I heard them talking—they'll sell all of us."

Japel knew she was ready for a fight but he also knew that Taurik needed medical attention and they couldn't contact the ship. They left the docking bay; once their communicators were working once more they apprised Bohemir of the situation and headed for the shuttle.


	8. A Strange Bedfellow

Disclaimer: I do not own Star Trek or any of the characters created therein.

A/N: Each of the characters in this story is representative of something I particularly like or find important in the Star Trek universe. Una—well, you're going to find out something unusual about Una later on. I don't want to spoil the surprise, but I will tell you that she represents the spirit of adventure that the fans feel in association with Trek.

-

First Impression, Chapter 8: A Strange Bedfellow

Una awoke to find she'd gone to market. Literally.

Once the pain in her head and the shock of seeing her Orion captors started to subside, she set her mind to figuring out exactly what had happened. The last thing she remembered was Taurik scanning a large room with ships docked inside it…

She tried her comm and wasn't surprised when her hails went unanswered. Where were the rest of the away team? Where, for that matter, was she?

It seemed likely that she was still on the station. She didn't feel too tired or weak and her head still hurt, so she hadn't been unconscious for more than a couple of hours. She was in a cage and not an interrogation room, so it was reasonable to assume that her jailors didn't realize she was Starfleet.

Nearby, a light began to flash wildly. The source appeared to be above the door of one of the adjacent cages that lined the dimly lit room. Una noticed that every cage had the same set of lights above it and deduced that the lights were some kind of locking mechanism; an Orion was in the process of dragging a despondent humanoid from the cell that was currently flashing.

His captive colleagues didn't seem to care much—none of them made a move to help him in any way. What was wrong with these people? Una wondered. It wasn't just that they didn't fight, they didn't even seem afraid or upset. It was like they were half dead!

Another set of light went off, then another and another as people were pulled from cell after cell and led out of the room. Through the wide doorway she could see the market floor and her fellow prisoners being auctioned off. The bidding was fast and furious and the Orions were keeping pace. Waiting for her fellow officers to rescue her would have been her preferred course of action, but Una surmised that it would not be long before she was on the auctioneer's platform herself.

She looked around her cage, weighing her options. All of her possessions had been confiscated, not that they would have been much use. The only other occupants were a Medek passed out—she hoped—on the floor and a dim figure slumped in a corner, so no help there. The door did not have any type of handle or accessible control panel, so little chance of rewiring or picking the lock. It was unlikely that she would be able to bend the bars, but she tried just to cover all of her bases.

A blinding pain rippled through her head and she fell to the floor of the cage, clutching her head. As she did so, Una felt the cold imprint of something metal…_embedded_ in her neck. Her curious fingers moved over it and the pain intensified until curiosity—indeed, until most thoughts and feelings—were forgotten.

Then, just as suddenly, it was gone.

She lay gasping on the floor of her prison, chest heaving and sweat curling down her forehead.

"Hands inside the cage at all times!" a nearby voice snapped.

A small man of indeterminate species dressed in long robes stood outside her cage and rapped a finger on one of the bars. He held a computer pad in one hand and his other hand was on a slender flashing gadget at his waist. As she watched he flicked one of the lights on and off and the door to her cell opened.

The robed man gestured to two Orions waiting nearby, who entered into the cage. Una prepared for a fight, but they passed her by and picked up the Medek and began to drag him out. The small man ran his hand over the gadget again and the Medek came to life between in their arms. His whole body jerked and stiffened and, amazingly, he began to walk on his own.

Ominously fascinated, Una watched as the Medek walked docilely through the enclosure to the sale platform. She didn't realize she was leaning on the bars again until pain poured through her with the same frightening intensity as before.

The robed man said nothing, just threw her a condescending look before heading after the Orions and the Medek.

Una lay on her back on the floor of the cell, panting and waiting for the pain and nausea to subside. There was a throbbing pulse behind her right eye and she was beginning to wonder if the device on her neck had damaged it in some way. Gradually she became aware of a figure standing over her.

"They're very serious about the rules back here," the figure told her evenly.

With effort Una shuffled herself onto her elbows to look at the smartass and was surprised—he appeared to be human. He was tall, dark haired, dark eyed, and dressed in a style reminiscent of a Romulan. The placid expression on his face smacked of disdain, something she really didn't need right now.

"Go away," she told him, waving a hand in his direction. The sooner he got lost the sooner she could work on getting out of here.

He kneeled down. "I can help you get out of here," he told her conspiratorially.

Una rolled over, turning her back on him.

"Look, we're both in the same situation here—"

"And you just happen to know how to get out of here? Why gee golly, I guess that's sure lucky for me!"

"I'm a regular here."

"Here?" Una gestured to the bars surrounding them.

"At Par'at Nor. Everyone knows how the system works—you break the rules, cause trouble, you end up on the blocks. It's pretty effective for keeping the peace, but I'm not stupid. I've taken precautions."

Una pulled herself off the floor and paced to stand in front of him. She put her face as close to his as she dared and enunciated carefully, "I do not require your assistance. Get…lost."

He didn't flinch and answered her back just as carefully. "What do you plan on doing?" He looked pointedly at the auction. The Medek was gone and a spindly Denobulan was now on the block. "I'm getting out of here with or without you. Come if you're not stupid."

Hell would freeze over before she was going anywhere with this guy. He set off every instinctual alarm bell in her mental armory. She glared at him and very deliberately turned around, crossing her arms over her chest.

She heard a shuffling sound and a click behind her…then another…then another. She couldn't help it—she peeked.

Her cellmate was nonchalantly laying three of the bars of the cage aside.

"What are you doing?" she whispered frantically.

He attached the small triangular device he had been using to cut the bars onto his belt.

"I told you I was leaving. What, did you think I was going to mull it over for awhile?" He held out his hand to her. She hesitated, eyeing him skeptically.

"I'm VeJack," he offered. "Jack, really."

He seemed to be suffering no ill effects from the device in his neck, she noticed. How had this not raised an alarm of some kind?

The answer was that it _had_ raised an alarm.

The light above the door to her cage flashed on and off and Una saw the robed alien from before heading toward her. The door swung open and the two Orion guards started inside. Una looked back at Jack, who was still holding out his hand, beckoning slightly as though to say, _come on!_

She didn't trust him. She didn't _know_ him. This was a mistake.

After taking a tenth of a second to make peace with this knowledge Una grabbed his hand and they burst out into the enclosure.

Pain shot through Una's neck.

"I knew I was forgetting something!" She buckled under the force of it.

Her companion put a hand inside the front of his shirt and drew out a slim metal object: a pipe about 10 cm long and 1 cm in diameter. He shoved one end of it over the probe in her neck and twisted it. Una had the odd sensation of feeling it turn beneath her flesh; the pain snapped off as though a switch had been thrown inside her body. There was no time to contemplate this as her companion dragged her to her feet and pulled her along the rows of cages.

"Faster," he instructed. She obeyed, putting every ounce of strength into getting as much distance as possible between herself and her pursuers. They were running in and out of rows, between cages, through small pockets of crowds, trying to confuse their pursuers.

A group of Ferengi traders squawked audibly when Una careened past them.

"Filthy human!"

"…tore my sleeve…!"

"…place is a zoo…"

"Sorry!" she called breathlessly as they scowled.

They were nothing to worry about, but the giant Klingon carrying what looked like an entire armament's worth of weaponry was. He swore creatively when Una hit him and sent him stumbling. Jack propelled her forward, though, effectively vetoing any attempt to apologize.

Someone finally activated an audible alarm, though this one was not as lethal as the last Una had encountered. It blared through the rooms, disrupting the sale and dispersing the crowd. Many members of the throng seemed to think the alarm had something to do with them and were beating a hasty retreat. In the panic Una let go of her companion's hand and started to make her way toward what appeared to be an exit.

"This way!" her rescuer hissed, grabbing her tunic from behind before she could dart out of range. Guards were rampaging their way through the crowd from the direction she had been heading.

Una turned and followed him to the edge of the room where a narrow ventilation grid awaited them. Squirming their way through it, they ended up in a relatively clear foyer to a series of passageways. Una pulled herself out of the tube and first and started running without hesitation.

Jack was right behind her.

"Oh no you don't—you're not getting us caught now!" he pulled her arm back, swinging her down one of the passages. He pushed and dragged her to the end of the hall, where a closed door greeted them.

He urgently keyed a number into the control panel beside the door. Nothing happened.

"_I'm_ going to get us caught?" Una shot as he tried the number unsuccessfully two more times. He glared at her and pulled a small half-moon object from his pocket. He stuck it on top of the keypad and tried the door once more. This time it slid open. Smirking, he pushed her through.

She wanted to hit him.

They appeared to be at one of the docking ports, one that was certainly not as high class as the last one Una had seen. The ships were junkers—pieces of scrap that were barely organized into vessels, in some cases. To her chagrin he pulled her along to one of the less savory craft. After haggling with the door a bit—Una strongly suspected that this was not actually his ship—the hatch sprung open.

It was no better on the inside than the outside. Whoever owned the ship no doubt used it as living space too, and living was rough, to say the least.

Beggars can't be choosers, thought Una as she made her way to the cockpit.

The alarm was still blaring through the station as Jack powered up the ship.

"Not to put a damper on your plans, but how do you think we're going to get out of here? They're not going to open the doors for us and I don't think this piece of junk is equipped with photon torpedoes."

His only answer was a slight smile and a knowing look. His hands moved quick and sure over the control panels, obviously asking the computer to execute some elaborate task.

"Take up to the launch bay doors," he instructed.

Una did as she was told, though the controls weren't easy to figure out. The ship was Naausican and its functional organization was not intuitive for a human.

They hovered outside the launch doors. Jack sat back and waited.

"Uh, what are you doing?"

"Waiting," Jack told her. He consulted a chronometer and did some quick calculations. "20 seconds."

The shuttle rocked sharply to one side, a crack sounding along the hull. It was the unmistakable sound of phaser fire.

"What is that supposed to mean, '20 seconds'? 20 seconds to what? Implosion? Explosion? Escape? 20 seconds to utter failure?"

The shuttle jolted sharply again, cutting off her ramble.

"10 seconds," he informed her.

The shuttle was bucking and pitching now. Had they been privy to a full view of the hangar they would have seen that half a dozen Orions were now approaching their position and preparing to fire at will.

One side of the craft suddenly jerked down sharply, sending everything inside tumbling to one side.

Una righted herself and consulted the controls. "The starboard engine's taken damage."

"How much?"

"It's down to 20" she informed him.

"20? After one direct hit?" he asked. "Are you sure?"

"Yes I'm sure!" she snapped. "You get what you pay for, you know."

He did not reply as the doors finally slid open before them. Reluctant but with little choice, they ventured lopsidedly out into the black yaw of space. 


	9. A Shuttle Made For Two

Disclaimer: I do not own Star Trek or any of the characters created therein.

* * *

First Impression, Chapter 9: A Shuttlecraft Made For Two 

Sovak was learning more about his new crew than any training simulation could have told him.

Vesta was angry but controlled, ready to spring into action. Mirista Yale was empathic to the situation but unsure how to help. Japel, as always, was all business. Bohemir's mind was generating plans at warp speeds. Taurik was…well, to the others it might have appeared that Taurik was perfectly fine, but Sovak picked up on subtle cues and could see that the young Vulcan felt responsible for what had happened. Vesta, though she knew better than to say so out loud, apparently agreed.

"We need to get back in there as soon as possible. There has to be a way around this dampening field." Vesta was pacing the bridge, still dressed in her Maquis costume.

"I'm working on it, but I can't narrow down the frequency range. The distortion from the nebula is too much," Japel told her. Arima confirmed his findings a few seconds later from engineering: they couldn't beam into the station.

"How about re-modifying the shuttlecraft. Could we get in that way again?" Vesta asked.

"Unlikely," Bohemir told her. "If they figured it out I don't think they would hesitate to shoot us out of the sky."

"We could announce our true identity," Mirista offered.

Sovak fielded this one. "If they have Lt. Magis, and it is likely that they do, they would see her as a bargaining chip. I believe her life would be in far greater danger."

Bohemir stopped fidgeting. Sovak knew this meant his first officer had come to a decision.

"We have to buy her. We've got to get back in there to that auction and buy her out."

"A sound plan, but how do we infiltrate the station a second time?" asked Taurik.

"That's the point of this discussion," Vesta almost sneered. Taurik actually took a step back from her.

Sovak stepped between them to diffuse their conversation. "Perhaps we are going about this the wrong way. In a sense, we already do know a way in." He looked pointedly at Taurik and Vesta. Still wary of one another, they exchanged confused glances.

* * *

Una was beginning to think that escape had been a very bad idea. Ships from the station were swarming after them, and it seemed that no evasive maneuver could outwit them. She'd never been the best shuttle pilot, so it wasn't long before her knowledge of pilot tactics was exhausted. Her companion was better, but it didn't make a difference. He was currently working on prying off the cover of one of the control panels, for what reason she knew not. 

"Everything we do, they're on step ahead! They're going to destroy this ship!"

"Well, this is to be expected," Jack told her calmly, pulling a set of wires and chips out of the detached panel. "The probes in our necks are more than disciplinary measures, they're tracking devices. They're attached to our optical and auditory nerves, so everything we see and hear—they see and hear." He produced a small chip and replaced one of the navigational nodes with it, reattaching the panel when he was finished.

For a moment there was silence in the shuttle. He looked over at his companion to find her staring at him open-mouthed.

"You tell me this now!" she asked angrily. "Now that we're in a shuttle, being shot at, you happen to mention this somewhat important point! That they can see and hear everything we do?" The thought of something foreign attached not only to her neck but her eye made her sick. It also radically changed her views on the success of their escape.

_Focus!_ she told herself. When she spoke she was calm. "How do you plan to overcome this particular obstacle?"

"I already have," he told her smugly. The shuttle had changed direction while they were talking and their attackers seemed to thin. After a few minutes there was silence in the shuttle.

"Where did they go?" Una desperately wanted to wipe the smile from his face but a sharp jolt of the shuttle did it for her.

"We're losing power," she informed him. "The engines are failing."

"Have we been shot at?"

"No…it's a combination of the structural damage from before and something…else. Something outside the ship. The nebula is making the readings difficult…"

"We're here," Jack declared, getting up and moving to the back of the shuttle.

"We're _where_?" Una knew it was futile—he wouldn't answer her.

The lights flickered and the craft pitched violently and began to descend. It had unmistakably come into contact with a large gravitational mass.

"Wherever we are, we're about to go down," she informed her companion as she braced for the inevitable impact.

* * *

"I brought him to you—I want the seller's commission!" Vesta snarled at the burly Orion stretched out leisurely before her. She rattled Taurik's restraints and pushed him forward to emphasize her point. 

Pevet was, for lack of a better word, the manager of the Par'at Nor markets. This allowed him certain…luxuries not available to common person. His room practically oozed with illegally traded goods: it was filled with smoke from several pipe-like apparatus and there was an unpleasantly sweet odor in the air. In a corner an Orion woman waited with a tray brimming with drinks and exotic foodstuffs.

"I don't trust you. He was your shipmate, why are you turning him in?"

Vesta's antennae bristled. Taurik supposed it was a good thing that she didn't have to act her disdain for him, but he still wished she were not so adamant in her position. "He lost us a good crewmember. I'm glad to be rid of him. All I ask is that you give me the commission so that I can recoup some of our losses to this godforsaken market."

Pevet considered. He motioned to the slave girl in the corner and lifted a drink from her tray, eyeing her lasciviously as he did so. Vesta had to forcibly stymie her gag reflex—was this guy _trying_ to be a cliché?

The Orion sat back once more and contemplated his guests.

"What is a Vulcan doing traveling with traders such as yourselves anyway?"

"He's only half-Vulcan," Vesta said quickly, "and he's good with engines. He should fetch you a fair price."

"So you acknowledge that your crewmates caused some trouble here on the station?"

"Yes."

"And you want to make up for that?"

She didn't like where this was heading, but she had no choice but to answer in the affirmative. "Yes."

"Good! We are of an accord."

Two guards appeared and began to haul Taurik away—and Vesta.

"Hey! Get your hands off—what about our deal!" Vesta struggled.

"We just made one. Your crewmate somehow escaped. Thank you for offering to take her place—that _does_ help ease the financial burden your ship is responsible for. I'm not sure about your Vulcan, but I'm quite certain _you_ will auction well." Pevet cackled as they were dragged from the room, Vesta shouting bloody murder and Taurik composed.


	10. It's Like Gilligan's Island but in Space

Disclaimer: I do not own Star Trek or any of the characters created therein.

* * *

First Impression, Chapter 10: It's Like Gilligan's Island, but in Space?

Metal clanked on metal as the ship made its way uneasily into one of the rusty docking ports. Rusty? Una wondered at that. There really shouldn't be rust in the vaccum of space. She couldn't tell much else about the structure as Jack had programmed the ship to back them in blind. Aside from the unspectacular view of a docking clamp and entry port, there weren't many clues as to their current whereabouts.

The ship connected successfully with the structure and Jack activated the de-pressurizing and docking sequence. The door of the shuttle hissed open and Una took a breath of humid, musty air. She started coughing, surprised by the smells that greeted her.

Before she could get accustomed to her new surroundings she felt a hand over her eyes.

"Now this is ridiculous. I'm not going to stumble around this place with my eyes closed!"

"I'm not asking you to, but you need to keep your eyes shut for a couple of minutes."

"Should I ask why?"

"I'll tell you…in a couple of minutes." She felt the muscles in his hands twitch as he shifted slightly. Something clattered to the ground and she started, eyes flying open beneath his cupped palm. Her breathing became more rapid and she tensed. This guy really could be anyone—had he lured her here to kill her? She blinked rapidly, trying to get a sense of her environment.

"Relax," he told her. "Just keep you eyes closed." She didn't respond. He sighed.

"Look, I'm going to take my hand away now. You don't have to do what I asked, but I highly recommend that you do. I'll be right back." With that the hand fell away, giving Una barely a fraction of a second to squeeze her eyes shut again.

She heard him walking away down what sounded like a hall. The footsteps receded beyond her hearing and she was alone.

Silence stretched all around; she tried to gauge what kind of place she was in by the quality of it. In the distance she began to make out small sounds, almost like…animals shuffling around. When she shuffled her feet the walls seemed to absorb the sound—slightly strange since most ports of call in space were largely metal. The air around her was warm and damp, almost like a greenhouse. And the smells! It was earthy, mingled with a heavy sweet fragrance. Her curiosity was aching to know what this place was.

The light through her closed eyelids suddenly got a lot brighter. Someone had turned on the lights.

His footsteps sounded again in the corridor. She turned in his direction expectantly.

"Go ahead and open them," he told her.

She did.

Her jaw dropped.

She had been wrong—they were metal walls. They were covered, though, with some type of creeping reddish moss. Vines tangled over part of the doorway in front of her and a large red and white flower bloomed audaciously along the doorframe. Through the doorway she could see more vines and leaves.

"What is this place?" she asked, awestruck.

Jack didn't answer. Instead he held out a PADD to her.

"Cat got your tongue?" she asked. He waved the PADD insistently. She took it and looked.

He had typed a message on it.

_The generator has been switched on—it should block their optical feed. They can still hear us. Use this PADD for communications._

He was watching her expectantly so she nodded that she understood. She typed on the PADD: _what is this place?_

_Abandoned Vulcan science station._

_What's with the plants? Who's taking care of them?_

_Don't know what the Vulcans were doing here. Experiments on deep space hydroponics, I guess. The plants took over._

_Are those animals?_

_Yes._

_What kind?_

_Don't worry about them._

_Not a good answer!_

He smiled and pocketed the PADD, to her infuriation.

"Would you like a tour?" he asked out loud.

Una followed him through the door and into the jungle.

* * *

Taurik stood calmly in one corner of the cage while Vesta paced—or rather, prowled. She hadn't said a word to him since they had been deposited there.

Turning his attention to the bars, Taurik waited. There was nothing else to do at this point.

"Ambulating continuously will not get us out of this situation," he observed.

"We wouldn't be in this situation if it weren't for you!" Vesta exploded. She had stopped pacing and stood, hands on hips, in the center of the cage. "Our crewmate is gone, the mission was compromised, and now more lives may be at stake."

"I know," he answered softly. Vesta was startled by the response. It was almost…emotional.

"I should have been better prepared for the away mission," he continued, turning away and gazing through the bars. The lilt was gone. "I am not accustomed to using violence."

"Sometimes you have to," Vesta snorted. She did not like her new role in this plan—being captured went against everything she believed a good security officer should be. But his answer dissipated some of her anger—not because she blamed him any less, but because it reminded her that she was the experienced officer on this mission—she had to act like it. She walked behind Taurik and peered out with him.

"It must be terrible, being kidnapped from your home and family, brought here and sold to people you don't know by people you don't know…"

"It must be quite…frightening for them."

"By the time Starfleet gets a contingent of ships out here to close them down all these people will probably have been sold. I wonder how many of them will get home." The Andorian looked sad and angry at the same time, Taurik noticed. He did not feel the emotions with her, but he did experience a surge of compassion towards both his cell-mate and their captured companions.

Lights above their cage door started to flash and an Orion stomped into the room. Instinctively Taurik stepped in front of Vesta. Vesta not so instinctively pulled him aside and stood almost nose to nose with the guard.

"You're up," he told Vesta. "Be nice."

Taurik braced himself for the coming melee…but it never came. Vesta sneered at the man and sashayed out of the cage and up to the podium. "Anything's better than this place," she spat at the guard, "and THAT Vulcan."

Vesta stood defiantly atop the block as the Orion auctioneer announced her and prodded her. She swatted at his pointer, much the amusement of the crowd. When bidding began it was fast and furious as Vesta quickly became hot property. When she finally sold there was a round of applause and catcalls to the lucky winner. From the cage Taurik could not see who this was and did not have time to ruminate on it as he was dragged the the block himself only minutes later.


	11. Nausicaan Rations

Disclaimer: I do not own Star Trek or any of the characters created therein.

* * *

First Impression, Chapter 11: Nausicaan Rations?—_or_— I'm Sure Whatever's in it…Tastes Like Chicken

"You must be joking—won't the alarms sound?" Una watched as Jack went around gathering small branches and sticks from what had once been a science lab. Now it much resembled a forest—a forest in which they were soon to be camping, apparently.

"The generator's online but none of the food sequencers work and it's not going to get warmer in here. All the ration packs are frozen—how do you suggest we heat them? Sit on them?"

Una desperately wanted to tell him to "sit on it" but refrained. He was right—they needed to build a fire.

"A cookout in space—this has to be a first." She started gathering wood along with him.

Less than half an hour later Una watched the ration packs baking slowly over the small fire they had concocted. The smoke drifted up a nearby airshaft—she wasn't sure where it was going and wouldn't be very surprised if they ended up dead of carbon monoxide poisoning.

Right now Jack was ignoring her, working on something out of one of the comm panels.

She waved to get his attention and motioned for the PADD.

_What's the plan?_ she wrote, handing it to him.

_I'm going to get this thing working and contact a friend who should be in the area. He'll get us out of here._

_What about these things in our necks?_

_I don't know—maybe he can get them out. One step at a time._

He put the PADD down and went back to work. Una picked it up and started to write something but erased it. She was torn—should she tell him who she really was? The Orions would not find out, but then she didn't really know who this guy was or what his reaction would be. So far he had proven trustworthy, she argued with herself.

She snuck a look at him as he worked. He had shed his heavy outer coat and was wearing a v-necked undershirt, completely absorbed in what he was doing. He was very fit, she was dismayed to find herself noticing, in a wiry kind of way, and his dark hair was sticking out in crazy directions—a mirror to their current state, perhaps. To her embarrassment he looked up and caught her studying him. Refusing to back down, she just raised and eyebrow and shrugged. He did the same. They were dark blue, his eyes.

_Oh for crying out loud…_

No, better not tell him. Not yet. She had to figure out a way back to the station and therefore her ship. That was what she should be concentrating on. She stabbed at one of the ration packs and found it was hot.

"Soup's on," she announced halfheartedly.

* * *

She wasn't exactly what he was expecting. Or rather, she wasn't exactly what he remembered. He'd seen her only once before in person and she didn't have any idea who he was. They'd been at Starfleet Academy at the same time, though he had graduated the year she started.

Lt. VeJack Anderson, Jack to his friends, stared down at his charge curiously. Everyone knew who she was—her story was famous— and had heard the rumors about her attending the Academy. Jack had been on his way to class one day when he passed the open door of one of the Academy's practice rooms. Normally they were filled with sweaty cadets trying to learn the finer points of Klingon judo but this day the studio was quiet except for a few strains of music. It was a song he'd never heard before…and when he caught sight of the room's lone occupant he surmised that it was from long before his time.

She was ballet dancing. She wasn't the best he'd ever seen, though his knowledge of dance was slim to none, but she was graceful. Feeling uncomfortably voyeuristic, he'd caught himself quickly and moved on. He'd sometimes wondered about her, what she was like, how she got through the Academy…but he'd never spoken to her and hadn't thought of her at all for years—until she ended up on the _Temura_.

He looked at his hands, remembering the odd sensation of her eyelashes brushing against them. She stirred on the floor and he felt somewhat guilty about lying to her, but it had to be done. He remembered her Starfleet record and his remorse vanished. She was a First Contact officer—she knew the importance of keeping one's cover. She would understand.

She was exasperating, though. He had thought she would be straightforward and easy to work with but she seemed to insist on doing everything—_everything_—the hard way. If he said left she said right, if he said up she said down, if he said stop she asked why. It was getting ever more difficult to keep his frustration in check as well as his desire to show her up at every opportunity. Una was bringing out something in him, something he tried to keep buried whenever possible. She brought out his human side.

His father would laugh at that—he always thought his son's dedication to Vulcan principles was particularly amusing. But then his father seemed to think most things were funny, from the fact that Jack was serious about his Vulcan heritage to the genetic joke that had given Jack human ears and his brother Charlie the Vulcan ones. Charlie, taking after their father, thought this was hysterical. He said it made everyone at Starfleet Astrometrics take him more seriously. Their mother, who was fully half Vulcan, observed dryly that neither of them made appealing Vulcans when they bickered—Jack, she announced, was too serious and Charlie too blithe. Both sons concluded that the third, Mark, was clearly her favorite. It was one of the few things they agreed on.

She stirred again, flinging one arm above her head and tilting her chin up. _Defiant even in sleep_, he thought almost fondly. When she started to snore the fondness left him and he kicked her gently to shift her position. She snorted and rolled over.

_That pretty much sums up our relationship_, he thought, before settling in to sleep.

* * *

Arima downed the liquor in one fell swoop, which pleased the alien opposite him to no end.

"Ruush-daar!" he shouted happily, raising his own glass. The chief engineer slammed his own glass down on the table in front of them. So far he had consumed four drinks with the Iridian trader. A little wooziness was a small price to pay for the amount of information he had gotten so far, though.

"It's so pleasing," the Iridian was telling him now, leaning close over the table, causing it and the glasses atop it to sway and clink perilously, "to meet another businessman like myself. So many people," he waved a hand expansively, indicating most of the bar's other patrons, "deal in such finite, limited things. But information… information… always has a market…"

"And is so portable," Arima finished for the man.

"Yes!" The Iridian slammed a jovial hand on the table, making the glasses jump.

Arima surreptitiously scanned the bar for Bohemir. He and the first officer had hidden aboard the shuttle after Vesta brought it into the station and had been searching for their missing crewmate for the past hour and a half. Dressed in dark, nondescript clothing, Arima had only begun to make headway after passing himself off as an information trader to the Iridian who now sat across from him. Arima was a man of few words and little elaboration—his imagination was running out of "tidbits" to trade.

"Enough smalltalk—you still owe me something in return for the information I gave you about the Federation warp assembly defect."

The Iridian frowned. Clearly he did not favor giving over receiving.

"This is the first time I've been here to Par'at Nor. Tell me how it works and who runs it."

At such a simple request the Iridian brightened again. "Ah yes, our lovely Par'at Nor. Pevet runs it—he's an Orion, of course. It's been here for years—nobody really comes into the nebula, the Federation, the Klingons, whoever. A couple of years ago there were some big changes though. Rumor has it that Pevet took on some…silent partners."

"Silent partners? What were the changes?"

"There was always the odd being for sale here and there, but this place became a real hub of activity in the slave trade. Bad news for traders like us, I'm afraid. We deal with a different sort of client. It's become difficult to make a living."

Arima commiserated by pouring the two of them another drink.

"So the slave markets started up. New clientele." He wanted to keep the trader talking…and drinking.

"At first just the one. Now there are…" his eyes scrunched as he tried to remember through his foggy brain, "four. Plus the special auctions."

"Special auctions?"

"Yeah. Some slaves get sold right away to nobody knows who. I think it's the silent partners."

Bohemir appeared near the door of the establishment briefly. Arima downed the rest of his drink and bid his new friend farewell and good luck.

"Remember my name if you meet any potential clients—I'll do the same for you!" the pale alien saluted him with a half-full glass, contents sloshing.

Seeing as he and the Iridian had never exchanged names, Arima found this highly unlikely but nodded anyway before heading out the door.

Bohemir was wearing a long robe and had been given the facial features of a Denobulan. His artificially blue eyes darted about, making sure no one was listening. "No one's seen any aliens resembling the Dukin come through this station. Of course, considering the sources…" 

"There may be another explanation. There's an additional slave auction somewhere on the station, or rather a standing order. Some beings bypass the regular auctions and go straight to this special sale."

"We didn't have much time to explore last time. We need to find that sale and see if our Dukin ended up there."

"What about Lt. Magis?"

Bohemir gave a crooked smile. "Well it seems there was a bit of a disruption on the station a while ago…"


	12. This Station Ain't Big Enough for the Bo...

Disclaimer: I do not own Star Trek or any of the characters created therein.

* * *

First Impression, Chapter 12: This Station Ain't Big Enough For the Both of Us

At first it was quiet, a sort of scuffling against the walls, a quiet bump…but Una awoke with a start at the unmistakable sound of a nearby footfall. Her eyes snapped open and she assessed the situation quickly. Jack lay about a meter away, his back to her. Someone was behind her, moving around.

She twisted abruptly and snaked out a hand, grabbing a thick booted ankle. A quick tug dislodged it from the floor and sent its owner down with it.

The Orion guard it belonged to looked none to pleased and was on his way up again—and he was not alone. Two other Orions and a Nausicaan were converging on Jack and Una.

"Jack!" Una hissed at her companion. He did not stir. "Jack!" she tried again, louder this time. She threw an empty ration pack at him but he didn't move. Was he dead? Had they strangled him in his sleep? Had she let that happen? She felt an instant surge of adrenaline on his behalf.

One of the Orions lunged for her but she darted easily out of his grasp. The Nausicaan had unholstered a phase pistol and was taking aim. She kicked it away from him and followed it up with another to his chest. He reeled backward into a bulkhead.

The Orion she had first downed was limping slightly and leaned over Jack. She tried to get to him but was pulled backward by something that constricted her airway. Another Orion had lashed a whip around her and was pulling her toward him. Choking, she tried to grasp it and gain some leverage.

A flurry of activity momentarily stopped Whipping Boy's pull on Una—Limpy was not leaning over Jack anymore. He was splayed on the ground with a sharp shard of glass protruding from his chest. Jack was on his feet and grappling with the third Orion, a muscular bald man with a leather cap. Cappy punched Jack soundly in the face, bringing him to his knees. Cappy gleefully put Jack into a headlock and began to choke the life out of him.

Una was in a similar situation as Whipping Boy resumed dragging her in. Una quickly changed tactics and rushed her opponent, startling him and putting him off balance. She took the opportunity and dove at him, taking him down.

Jack, meanwhile, was still in a headlock but had managed to maneuver the Orion around slightly. The Orion did not notice that he was now just meters away from one of the labs many protein synthesizing stations—a series of projecting probes attached to the wall of the station. It was half hidden by vines and plantlife but it was just what Jack needed. He pushed off the ground with all his strength—which the Orion, assuming he was human, has grossly miscalculated—and launched himself and his attacker back into the wall. His aim was dead on and the Orion let out a strangled cry as he was impaled. He went slack, releasing Jack.

He got up and shook his head to clear it, gasping for breath. The Nausicaan had not noticed that the other Orion was dead yet—he was dancing around trying to get a lock on Una as she fought the third Orion.

"Una!" he shouted. The Nausicaan whirled and Jack let loose his anger. He flew at the monstrous form, grabbing the pistol and hitting him hard enough to send him across the room. He landed in a crumpled heap in a large flowering plant—a study of contrasts.

Still angry, he pulled the Orion off of Una and soundly punched him in the face. Obligingly, the Orion went out like a light.

Jack leaned over and pulled Una up.

"You okay?" he asked gently, looking her over. She was huffing and puffing and had a bloody lip but she looked otherwise fine. There was a cut on one of her arms—a shard of glass had somehow cut through her sleeve and was now lodged in an angry wound below her shoulder. "We'll have to get that out," he observed.

"What the hell was that?" she snapped, bringing his attention to her face. She did not look happy, he was surprised to find. She looked downright mad.

"What the hell was what?" he asked, beginning to be very annoyed.

"_THAT_," she nodded toward the Orion. "First you play dead and let me do all the work, then, when I've taken care of it, you march in and play hero."

"_Taken care of it_? He was going to kill you! I saved your life! And you might notice that I technically beat all of them." The nerve! The ungrateful, unappreciative _nerve_!

"I had it under control. I'm no damsel in distress!"

"No, but you are quite a bitch." With that, he yanked the shard out of her arm.

She cried out and went down on her knees, her forehead beaded in sweat. She looked like she might be sick. He threw the glass aside and marched out, his anger unabated.

* * *

Una leaned forward until her head rested lightly on the cool deck of the lab. She was seeing stars but the pain was slowly receeding. Jack had left, which was fine with her—she really didn't want him to see her like this.

She had been so relieved—too relieved—when he had come to life as the Orion leaned over him. She hadn't realized how upset she was at the thought of his death and it was frightening to her. She was very confused by this. When he pulled the last Orion off her she was grateful, but somehow she couldn't say it. This man could not become meaningful to her—he was likely a criminal and would endanger her mission. He would probably be arrested if he escorted her anywhere near her ship.

_It's the heat of the moment_, she told herself. _Don't feel guilty for snapping at him. It revealed his true nature—remember that._ The throbbing in her arm was a sharp reminder. Something else was bothering her, but she couldn't quite get a fix on it…She sighed and gave herself to the count of 20 to get up.

* * *

The ungrateful…_ingrate_, he stewed. How dare she! He had only been concerned for her welfare. Well, he wouldn't make that mistake again. Deep down he wasn't so sure about that. He pushed aside that thought, along with the one that told him he should go and make sure she was okay.

_She can take care of herself_. Una would be the first person to tell him that.

He rubbed the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. What had happened in there? One minute he was fighting a smart fight, the next he was out for blood. Why? Una was right—she had been in control of her fight with the Orion. His brain had told him not to take the chance, though—to make sure she got out of it alive and unharmed.

_She is not the girl you saw in the studio_, he chastised himself. _Don't be ridiculous_.

His thoughts were gratefully interrupted by more footfalls coming down a nearby corridor. Footfalls and…something being dragged?

All mental advice forgotten, Jack looked back where he had left Una. He could not see her in the lab but he knew she was still there. There, and injured. He got ready for a fight.

It never came.

"Look what I brought you, human!" Garat bellowed. "Consider it a present." The huge Klingon erupted through the nearest door and deposited a mass of green flesh at Jack's feet. Another Orion.

"I found him in a ship outside. Who have you dishonored this time, my friend?"

Jack smiled broadly at his Klingon counterpart. Garat was working for the High Council on the same problem that Jack was. Months ago they has simultaneously discovered one another and decided that sharing information on the quiet might make both their jobs go much easier.

"Oh, you know. The Orions. The Nausicaans. Everybody."

"Is this your friend?" a voice asked. Una stood in the doorway, her hand over her upper arm. Jack felt immediate guilt and regret as he noticed a swath of blood across the fingers closed over the wound.

Garat looked from Una to Jack, then back again. Jack shifted uncomfortably and avoided his friend's eyes.

"I did not realize you were not alone," he said to Jack.

"Is that a problem?" asked Una. She wanted to be snappy but her arm hurt to damn much.

"No….no. You are injured."

"Yes," Jack went to her side. "We should get it cleaned up. And we should get out of here. There will likely be more where that came from," he nodded to the unconscious Orion. He placed a hand on Una's shoulder but she shrugged it off, refusing to meet his eyes as she headed for the docking ports. Jack put up both hands and backed away with a "whatever" look on his face.

Garat took all this in and smiled to himself.


	13. When Opportunity Knocks

Disclaimer: I do not own Star Trek or any of the characters created therein.

A/N: Each of the characters in this story is representative of something I particularly like or find important in the Star Trek universe. Helen Kincaide is another is a long line of wonderful 24th century doctors. I've always loved how Trek made forensic meddling and medical insight cool _before_ all the crime lab shows that are on TV today.

* * *

First Impression, Chapter 13: When Opportunity Knocks…

"From one cage to another," Vesta muttered. She and Taurik had been transferred to a holding area after their auctions as their buyers funds were checked and double-checked.

"For an illegal operation it is run quite efficiently," Taurik observed, watching the guards "process" another group of humanoids. Their new owner, a tall alien partially covered with a feathery down, was clucking over them, apparently instructing the guards not to damage her property.

"Greeeee-zaaaaoo," a low voice drawled. Outside their cage stood their new owner—a scaly, sloth-like alien. The universal translator was having trouble recognizing his speech pattern. "Greeeeeeeeee-ZAAAAOOOOO," he said more insistently, poking a nearby guard and pointing at Vesta and Taurik.

"Of course, sir. We'll have them ready for you as soon as your transfer clears," the small robed humanoid was clearly in charge of keeping order: he had a control of some sort that allowed him to activate and deactivate the doors to the cages as well as the implants in their necks.

Slothman wailed his understanding. Taurik seemed nonplussed at the prospect of becoming the property of the Slothman but Vesta's attention was elsewhere.

"They're going to make a run for it," she whispered to Taurik, pointing to the slaves with the feathered lady. Their neck devices had been removed and Taurik could see that they were indeed bracing to run, their movements quick and nervous. Free from their disciplinary apparatus, they had hatched some sort of plan. One of them, apparently jumping the gun, darted out from the others and made a mad dash for the nearest exit.

"Stupid!" Vesta whispered vehemently. "He won't make it far eno-"

She was cut off by a blaring, insistent alarm. Taurik recognized it immediately as the alarm that had gone off in the docking bay with Una. Just as before, it affected all those around him—Vesta fell writhing to the floor, as did everyone else. Everyone, that is, but the guards and Taurik. The guards seemed to have some type of aural protection against the alarm and Taurik—well, Taurik couldn't quite understand it.

He bent to help Vesta and pondered this. No one was paying any attention to him—the Orions were busy rounding up the now-prone escapees and everyone else was clutching their ears in pain. Obviously his physiology was somehow protecting him. Vulcan ears were quite different in form if not function than human or Andorian ears, to be sure, but…why install an alarm that only worked on certain people?

The easy answer must be that Vulcans were not really expected on this station and, in general, Vulcans were not expected to cause trouble. But surely there were others the alarm would not work on…if it did not work on Vulcans then…

Suddenly he understood. All of it: the kidnappings, the station, the auctions, the missing Dukin, the strange ship they had followed into the nebula…it all made sense. And a plan, stunning in its simplicity, presented itself to him.

The alarm was shut down, leaving behind a blistering silence. Vesta groaned and Taurik helped her to her feet. Shakily she allowed herself to lean on him as she got her breath back.

"Lieutenant…"

She was not listening.

"Vesta," he shook her slightly. Her head lolled around and she squinted.

"I believe I have plan."

* * *

"We _will_ get them back—my crew has already located them. I have dispatched two more shuttles to help. It's only a matter of time!" Pevet was trying not to sound desperate but he had a feeling he was losing that battle. The figure on the round viewscreen in front of him was unmoved.

"Our sources indicate that they were both Starfleet—you failed to notice this and you let them escape? This does not speak well for you or for our partnership."

Pevet began to sweat. Starfleet? That incompetent half-breed was _Starfleet_? And the woman? That meant that…oh dear gods, the station had been crawling with them…A thought occurred to him.

"I still have two of them here. We can hold them, demand that Starfleet leave, get information from them…"

"If you have two of them there are likely more in the area. Starfleet officers are like vermin—where there is one there are always more. _Try_," Pevet winced at the sarcasm, "to keep them prisoner this time."

"I will find out how they—"

"_We_ will interrogate them."

"You?"

"We are en route now. Do nothing to them until we arrive, if you can manage to keep them incarcerated." The transmission ended abruptly, leaving Pevet queasy…and angry.

_Do nothing_! This was _his_ station, dammit, and he was going to get some answers. He would move them, first of all, to somewhere more secure…Pevet glanced over his shoulder at a partially curtained doorway.

Though the room beyond was darkened he could hear its occupants moving softly within their cages. The aliens liked it dark and had not stopped wailing until the lighting had been dimmed for them. Now they were quiet—he hardly knew they were there. If only all his charges were so easily kept.

It was the most secure spot on the station, which was really saying quite something. Yes, the Starfleet officers, if that's what they were, should be here, not downstairs where they might try to escape or cause trouble.

Calling his entourage, he left the room and descended into the common slave markets below, barking instructions into a communicator.

* * *

Bohemir and Arima, unaware of what was going on in the holding cells on the floors below and above them, were making their way through their third slave auction. The going was slow mainly because they feared that using tricorders or scans would bring them unwanted attention. So far their search had been largely visual.

"Commander," Arima murmured into his comm., "I think I've got something."

"I hope so." Bohemir was getting worried—there weren't many more places to look. They seemed to be at the top level of the station.

"There," Arima gestured toward the ceiling in a corner of the market.

At first Bohemir saw nothing but darkness, but as his eyes adjusted he could make out a narrow stairway and a nondescript door. As he watched the door opened and a well-dressed Orion flanked by two guards emerged.

Bohemir nodded to Arima. "Good work—now, how do we get in?"

"We wait for the opportunity to present itself."

* * *

* * *

The device fell onto a table beside the guard with a clatter.

"Next," he hustled her forward into the waiting neck brace of the Slothman. She struggled but was forced to the scaly alien's side.

"Brrriiiiiieeeeeet-zoooooow," it said helpfully, rattling the brace. Beside him the robed alien hovered, making sure the customer was satisfied with his purchase.

Vesta twisted to see where Taurik was—his implant was being pulled from his neck. The "doctor" that had removed it slapped a small bandage on it and shoved him forward into the waiting arms of Slothman.

It was now or never.

Bracing herself for the inevitable pain, Vesta started screaming. Screaming, crying, thrashing—she kicked the sloth in the midsection and sent it flying. A guard grabbed the chain to her brace and yanked it hard but she surprised him by kicking his legs out from under him. She gathered up the chain in her arms and started to run.

She only made it a few steps before the alarm sounded. It brought her instantly to the floor, though she tried valiantly to keep moving and fighting—to distract as many guards as possible.

The Orions converged on her and dragged her up off the ground, still squirming. Her antennae were dancing wildly as the alarm tore through her inner ear, setting off fireworks in her brain.

Suddenly she was on the ground again. Something heavy fell next to her and Vesta realized it was one of the guards, unconscious. Another dropped beside him. Above her she was dimly aware of Taurik fighting. He put the last one down with a kick to the torso and turned to the robed alien, who was frantically pushing buttons on his control box. Taurik relieved him of it and with a disdainful look delivered another well-placed neck pinch.

Vesta was on the verge of unconsciousness when the alarm blessedly stopped. She lifted her head weakly and tried to smile at the Vulcan.

"Your plan worked," she croaked.  
"Indeed." He helped her up. "Where is the doctor?"

The Slothman was coughing and spluttering in a corner, trying to right himself. "Here!" he called in an uncharacteristically human female voice.

Dr. Kincaide managed to stand and readjusted her mask. "This thing was not made for a lot of action."

Taurik was examining the gadget in his hands carefully.

"Can you figure it out?" Vesta asked.

"I believe so." He hit a sequence of buttons and an alarm outside their holding area sounded. "Perhaps I should spend more time studying it."

Vesta shook her throbbing head and made her way to the door, throwing it open. The market outside was, for the second time that day, in a state of total disarray. It wouldn't take the Orions long to pinpoint the problem.

"We don't have time, we need to create some chaos—can you open the cage doors?"

The Vulcan raised an eyebrow and pushed a button. The marketplace lit up as every cage door flashed its unlocking sequence and swung open.

Vesta turned to her shipmate, her eyes wide.

"Emergency release," Taurik said.

* * *

Bohemir didn't know what was causing it, but he knew what it was—opportunity. Gratefully, he took it. He contacted Kincaide over his comm link but could not hear her answer—if there was one—over the pandemonium.

The well-dressed Orion was in a full state of panic as every alarm on the station seemed to be going off. Cage doors were opening and closing at random and the prisoners were taking full advantage of it. His guards were seriously outnumbered—he turned to abandon them and take refuge in the room above.

Without a word Bohemir and Arima charged after him, easily sidestepping the pre-occupied guards. They made their way up the stairs and burst through the door—and straight into a round of phaser fire.

Arima went down, clutching his side in pain. Bohemir could see the burn marks that seared his friend's clothing and flesh and felt a surge of anger. He started toward the attacker.

Pevet waved the phaser discouragingly. "Stay there. I'll kill him," he trained the weapon on the engineer, who had gone pale and still.

Bohemir stopped, a mask of hatred on his face.

"Starfleet, right?" the Orion was circling, putting himself between Bohemir and the door. "I was going to bring your Andorian up here but you'll do just as well. As long as I have something to hand over to my…partners, this may not be a total loss."

"Your partners?" Bohemir asked.

"Yes. They can be demanding, but I have to admit they've been good for business."

"Who are they?"

Pevet smiled. "People you don't want to get angry."


	14. Cloak and Dagger

Disclaimer: I do not own Star Trek or any of the characters created therein.

* * *

First Impression, Chapter 14: Cloak and Dagger

A light on the tactical panel blinked insistently.

"Sir, there's ship on our port side."

Japel wished for the thousandth time that Vesta were there. He was confident in his own abilities but he felt the Andorian would be better at tactical analysis in this situation.

_Probably why she's Chief of Security_, he mused.

Sovak shot up from his seat—the only indication he had given over the past two hours that he was feeling as tense as the rest of the bridge crew.

"On screen."

The viewer snapped into life revealing the ships.

"What are _they_ doing here?" Japel wondered aloud.

* * *

"Romulans?" Kincaide asked, huffing. "What would they be doing here?"

Taurik was trying to explain what he had deduced as they headed for the upper levels of the station. The Vulcan had effectively disabled the door locks as well as the neck devices on most of the aliens in the market, all of whom were now running free around them. The small group had to dodge and weave their way through the seething crowd. Staying together was proving a challenge, especially for the doctor in her cumbersome disguise.

"Yes. When I was not affected by the aural alarm I concluded that the only other species that would be immune to such an alarm was the Romulans. It fit with all our known information: the ship, the kidnappings, their reluctance to help with the investigation. I suspect," he ducked as a chair flew past his head, "that the Romulans have been using this station as a cover for a more sinister operation."

* * *

"Maybe," the Orion shrugged ungracefully.

"Oh come on. You don't think Par'at Nor is being used in some larger Romulan plot? Give me a break! Why would they be interested in slave markets if this place wasn't a front for something bigger?"

The three had reached a kind of détente—Bohemir was tending to Arima's wound as best he could while the Orion watched over them with the phase pistol.

"I think you might be surprised, Starfleet. The Romulans are _very_ interested in the humanoid trade, but they only want _certain_ people," Pevet explained. "They come in and pick them up, leave me to run my station. What do I care why they want them?"

"What can people like the Dukin possibly mean to the Romulans?"

* * *

"The who? I have never heard of these people. You are not seriously accusing us of being involved with this…_bazaar_, are you?" The Romulan captain, Nolus Tar, asked with incredulity and disdain. His face filled the viewer at the front of the Temura's bridge.

"I am, I assure you. We have found evidence linking Romulan technology to a ship involved in numerous kidnappings from Federation space, including Dukinar's pre-warp society."

The Romulan flexed a tiny muscle in his jaw. For a human it would have meant very little; Sovak took it as a wholesale confession. The Romulans hadn't known Dukinar was still technically pre-warp. It had been a screw-up. "I do not know what you are rambling about, Vulcan."

"Then why are you here?" Sovak asked innocently. "Have you lost your way and wandered into Federation territory?"

"We were here to do you a favor," the Tar spat. "We discovered peoples taken from Federation space and…like you, traced them to this station. We have come to investigate."

"Why did you not choose to offer this information when Captain Sovak requested it earlier?" Mirista stood from her position on Sovak's left and approached the viewer. "It would have made matters much easier."

"We are not obligated to you or your inept, cumbersome investigations. We wished to make our own inquiries. I can see now that our course of action was warranted—you accuse us with no proof whatsoever. It is not an incentive to assist you. Now—we would like to continue our mission. We will let you know what we uncover, I assure you."

"You will forgive me if your offer does not assuage my suspicions. We will remain." Sovak stood his ground easily.

"I would rather you did not," Tar almost smiled.

An alarm went off in Sovak's mind. A happy Romulan was never a good sign.

"Sir there's another Warbird decloaking," Japel called out from tactical.

"Leave now," Tar instructed before cutting the transmission. Sovak found himself staring at a field of stars, pondering his options.

_Too bad backup won't be decloaking for us. Six of my crew on the station and we're outnumbered two to one_.

* * *

"We're outnumbered two to one!" Garat growled as the ship rocked from another blast. The two ships had appeared only minutes after the group had departed the station. "Orion pigs! How did they find you so quickly?" he demanded. Jack and Una did not seem to be paying attention. "What are you doing!"

Jack said nothing but pointed to the device in his neck. He and Una made an odd pair at the moment: they were trying to focus only on non-critical areas of the ship and therefore looked for all world like two tourists studying the architecture of a particularly interesting structure.

Garat said something in Klingon that was not very nice.

"Can't you cloak the ship?" Jack asked.

"The cloaking generator is down," shouted one of Garat's bridge crew in Klingon. "Shields at 50."

"Why are they expending this much effort on a couple of escapees?" asked Una. The ship bucked again and she braced herself against a bulkhead. Her mind raced with possibilities. Had they found out she was Starfleet? Were her friends and shipmates okay? Had they been captured? Or worse?

Unbeknownst to her, Jack was thinking much the same thing.

"Rutil!" shouted Garat. A grizzled Klingon with an eyepatch and scraggly grey hair jumped to attention. "Remove their implants," he instructed.

Rutil headed across the bridge and clamped a hand on Una's arm. She winced in pain as he dragged her toward the back wall of the room. Jack followed, wrenching Una free from the Klingon.

"Watch it!" he instructed, pointedly ignoring Una's furious glare.

The Klingon shrugged and opened a panel set in the wall. There were a few medical instruments and bandages rolling about inside.

Una was appalled. "Tell me you're not going to—"

The Klingon pulled out a scanner and a pair of what looked like pliers.

"—oh you are," Una finished.

"Welcome to Klingon sickbay," Jack muttered.

Una barely had time to react as Rutil injected her with a hypospray and attached the pliers to her neck device. With surprising finesse he twisted it and pulled it out. Her hand flew up to where it had been but the Klingon batted it away, slapping a bandage in its place.

"That's it?" The ship was still rocking and she could hear Garat yelling orders to his men.

Rutil did not answer as he performed the same procedure on Jack.

"The implants are out—the sensors attached to your eyes and ears will have to be removed some other time. They are still there—just not transmitting," the Klingon told them. He turned abruptly and headed back to his station on the bridge.

"Aft shields at 30," a crewman was saying, "but we have taken out propulsion on one of the Orion ships!"

Garat bellowed a harsh laugh. "Aha! Bring us about! Target their reactor!"

They were hit again and a control panel along the back wall blew up in a shower of sparks. Una pulled Jack away from the fire and back into the main bridge area. Free from Big Brother, she was finally able to assess their situation.

"Jack," Garat yelled, "fix the cloaking generator! They're trying to herd us back toward Par'at Nor."

Where no doubt a welcoming party will be waiting, Jack thought. He nodded and left for the engineering compartment. Una followed and was promptly thrown into him when the ship pitched heavily to starboard.


	15. Together at Last

Disclaimer: I do not own Star Trek or any of the characters created therein.

* * *

First Impression, Chapter 15: Together at Last

"Oof—sorry," Kincaide tried to roll off of Taurik without much success. Vesta hauled both the doctor and the Vulcan to their feet. They had made it to the upper level of the structure despite the near-riots forming throughout the station. They stood now at the the edges of the marketplace to get away from the scrambling, pushing crowds and to survey the situation.

"Where are Bohemir and Arima?" asked Kincaide, scanning the room as best she could.

_

* * *

_

_Where is Kincaide?_ Bohemir wondered as he listened to Pevet ramble. She should have safely purchased the lieutenants by now and started toward Bohemir and Arima's location. There was a lot of disruption on the station, though. He had been grateful for it at first but now he was changing his mind. Had his communication gone through? Could they get here?

He could still hear the muffled roar of throngs of people just below them in the markets. This seemed to make Pevet nervous: he couldn't stop talking.

"How do I know _why_ they wanted them? Would you have asked? I think not. They're involvement here made Par'at Nor bigger than it's ever been—we pulled in more profit last year than any other trading outpost in the Beta Quadrant, legal or no. You can't argue with revenue like that!" He was talking so quickly that Bohemir could barely make him out now. Pevet had backed himself flat against the wall and was waving the phaser from one corner of the room to the next, as though assassins lurked at every turn.

"Now you think I'm going to close it down because Starfleet knows about us?" he screeched. "I have worked too long and made too many sacrifices for that!" He stopped shaking, aimed the weapon directly at Bohemir and pressed the trigger.

The shot flew wildly toward the ceiling as Pevet was knocked forward onto the floor. The door he had been leaning against burst open, revealing a very disheveled Vulcan, Andorian, and, well…

"Doctor! Commander Arima's been hurt."

Vesta sized up the situation and leapt on Pevet before he could recover himself.

"Help me get out of this damned costume," Kincaide insisted as she bent over Arima.

Forgotten in the commotion, Taurik took a moment to look over the room. A well-camouflaged control panel on one wall caught his eye and he went to examine it.

"Sir," he addressed Bohemir, who was hovering behind the doctor as she worked on Arima. "I believe this panel controls the dampening field around the station. If we can disrupt it we could communicate with the ship and beam back over."

"Can you do it?"

"It is encrypted."

"I bet I know someone who has the key." Vesta pulled a squirming Pevet to his feet.

"I won't help you! You don't know what the Romulans would do to me!"

"No," Bohemir picked up the phaser from the floor. "But I do know what Starfleet will do to you if one of their officers dies at your hands."

Taurik stepped aside to give him room, and as he did so his sensitive Vulcan hearing picked up something else. He turned and peered through a doorway into the darkness beyond. There seemed to be cages…

Meanwhile, the fire in the Orion seemed to go out. Vesta pushed him toward the panel and he began to work.

* * *

Jack had been working on the panel for several minutes and had so far succeeded only in burning two of his fingers as the circuits fizzed with energy.

"Can you fix it?" Una asked.

He didn't answer. "Hand me that spanner."

She did as she was asked. He took the spanner and looked up at her, as though struggling with something internally. She was standing very close to him, very, very close…

Una stared back at him, willing him to talk to her, tell her what was on his mind. Or better yet, to _not_ talk…

Garat's voice sounded over the comm. system. "We need that generator!" he barked.

The moment broke.

"I'm working on it, I'm working on it." For someone under a lot of pressure, Jack was certainly keeping a cool head. Una watched him work and the feeling she had on the station grew in the back of her mind—not the attraction, the other feeling…that something about this guy didn't add up. His presence was not entirely coincidental.

Her thoughts were cut short as Jack straightened from the panel. "Try it now," he told Garat, and waited.

"Good! The generator is working. None too soon—we are back at the station, and we are not alone. Starfleet is here."

Jack and Una raced one another back to the bridge. When they arrived they were greeted with the site of the U.S.S. _Temura_ staunchly treading space beside Par'at Nor…along with two Romulan Warbirds. The Orion vessel that had been pursuing Garat's ship broke off and flanked one of the Warbirds.

"Poor Starfleet," Garat commented.

Things had finally come to a head, and Una made a decision. "We have to help them," she told Garat and Jack.

She was shocked when Garat smiled and answered, "Don't worry, Lieutenant, we will. Decloak beside the _Temura_!"

* * *

"Captain," Japel called, "a Klingon ship is decloaking beside us! They're hailing us."

Before Sovak could respond the tactical station beeped again. "We're also being hailed from the station! It's the Commander."

"Report," ordered Sovak.

Commander Bohemir's voice filled the bridge. "Captain, it's good to hear your voice. We've got a lot of things cleared up here on the station but we have no idea what's going on out there."

* * *

Una had no idea what was going on now. "You called my name when we were fighting the Orions, even though I never told you," she accused Jack. "How are you involved in this?"

"We're on the same side," Jack began.

She backed away.

"Perhaps you could discuss this another time?" Garat snapped at them as the _Temura_'s bridge came into focus on the viewer.

"Captain Sovak!"

"Lt. Magis. I see you made it off the station. What is your current status?" Sovak sounded for all the world like he was inquiring after her mother's health or some other mundane subject.

"I'm fine, Captain."

"Captain Sovak, I believe we are working on the same problem," Garat interrupted.

Sovak turned his attention to the muscular Klingon. "Oh?"

Garat nodded. "I have been investigating a series of kidnappings and disappearances over the last year in Klingon space. I was informed that you were doing the same for Starfleet. I am here to offer you assistance."

"Who informed you of this?" Sovak asked.

Una shot a look at Jack, who had opened his mouth to speak.

"That is not important," Garat continued. "I assume that you have come to the same conclusions that we have—the Romulans are behind these kidnappings."

"Yes," announced a voice to the left of the Vulcan. Bohemir strode into view, still dressed in his Denobulan garb. "What we're not clear on is _why_."

"Commander!" Una called. "Is everyone alright?"

Bohemir nodded. "We're all back on board—along with the Dukin and a very unhappy Orion."

Jack laughed. "You found Pevet, eh? Who's running the station?"

"Par'at Nor is, for the moment, closed for business."

"We believe the Romulans wanted to destabilize the area of Federation space closest to Klingon space," Garat addressed the question at hand. "So it would seem," Sovak raised one eyebrow. "I suggest we pose our questions to Commander Tar and his friends."

Garat grinned again. "Agreed!"

Not surprisingly, Tar had very little to say to Sovak or Garat's accusations. Upon hearing that Par'at Nor had been under investigation for several months, he hastily announced that he would need to discuss the "egregious persecution" by the Klingons and Starfleet with his superiors.

"Think they'll be brought to justice for this?" Vesta asked Japel as they watched the Romulan ships speed off into the nebula. She had taken up her place at tactical again, much to Japel's relief.

"Who knows? But I'll bet the people you rescued from the station are just grateful to be free again. That's some sort of justice, anyway."

The Andorian nodded, reminding herself that there was one Vulcan on the ship to whom she owed an apology.


	16. They Won't All be Like This, Will They?

Disclaimer: I do not own Star Trek or any of the characters created therein.

A/N: Each of the characters in this story is representative of something I particularly like or find important in the Star Trek universe. Jack, as you may have figured out by now, is my link to the earliest days of deep space warp travel. He is the great-grandson of Cmdrs. Tucker and T'Pol from Enterprise. So we see that engineering runs in the family, although Jack certainly has his own issues to deal with.

* * *

First Impression, Chapter 16: They Won't All be Like This, Will They? 

Less than 24 hours later Sovak, once again, looked around the room at his new crew. Unlike the last time they had met like this, he now knew how they would react with one another under pressure—his confidence in them had not been misplaced.

Dubvelin Set, the Dukin scientist, also sat at the conference table, quietly talking to Japel. The Dukin were safely aboard and the warp scientist, amazingly, had found the entire experience to be a wonderful adventure. Mirista had so far spent many hours with them, introducing them to the Federation and the threshold over which they were now crossing. She was confident that the First Contact would be a success.

"I never imagined," he bubbled to the Science Officer, "that space would be like this! There is so much for us to see, so much for us to learn! We're on the verge of something truly spectacular!"

Garat had joined them too. He had divulged much of the data he had recovered to Vesta and Sovak, filling in many details of what he had discovered concerning Romulan involvement in Parat Nor.

"They were trying to trying to discourage civilizations on the verge of warp travel from developing better warp technology. More importantly the Romulans wanted to create dissent between warp-verge civilizations and the Federation in sensitive areas of space," Vesta summed up. "They discovered the station and realized what a great front it would be for this operation. They "bought" the specially targeted humanoids in exchange for their reactor technology."

She turned to the Klingon. "There's something I don't understand, though. Garat, how did you know that the _Temura_ would be here, in the nebula? Who gave you this information?" 

_Now is the time_, Jack thought. Una had been avoiding him since he'd come aboard so he figured things couldn't get much worse.

"I did," he announced to Sovak and the entire room. "Lt. Jack Anderson at your service. I've been observing Par'at Nor for Starfleet Intelligence for the last six months. I was aboard the ship that kidnapped the Dukin."

He watched Una's reaction. She said nothing but her jaw was clenched tight.

"Yes," Sovak was saying, "Once we cleared the nebula this morning I contacted Starfleet and informed them of our situation. They relayed back that they would be sending several ships out to transport the aliens left on the station back to their homeworlds. They also informed me of your presence here, Lieutenant. I must say, it is convenient."

"Convenient?" asked Jack.

"Yes. I informed them that you had completed your mission and requested that you stay aboard the _Temura_—as our Field Engineer."

"_What_! Sir, he's not a good choice for the position…" Una was vehement. She did not want to be working with this person—this _liar_—on away missions. She needed to know she could trust people, needed to know they were committed to the mission...

"I disagree. The lieutenant has demonstrated all the necessary skills required by a Field Engineer, you said so yourself in your report. The escape from Par'at Nor, the ability to create solutions quickly from substandard materials…and Starfleet approved the assignment, as long as Lt. Anderson is willing." He looked at Jack expectantly.

Jack thought about this for a moment. A field engineer got to go on missions, get off the ship quite a bit. It was better than being stuck in engineering, which was likely what any other assignment he got would be. And so far he liked everyone he had met on the ship. If he were honest, though, that wasn't why he was really considering taking the post.

He glanced over at Una. She refused to look in his direction. She hated his guts right now. It would be foolish to take the position. His Vulcan side told him to turn it down. Even his _human_ side had doubts.

"I'll take it."

* * *

Una was halfway to her quarters by the time he caught up with her. She had excused herself gracefully but he could tell she was not happy. They needed to clear this up before things got any worse between them. 

"Una, wait!" he called. She kept walking. He put a hand on her arm and twirled her to face him. He smiled at her in what he thought might be an assuring manner. "I want us to be able to work together—"

Bad move.

One minute he was trying to talk to her, the next he was on the deck nursing a bloody nose.

"How dare you? How _dare_ you!" She was enraged. He gaped; she was really quite something when she got going. "It was you—you left the trail for us to follow. That's why they were so sloppy with Dukinar—you engineered it that way! You knew who I was and you lied to me the whole time."

"I couldn't tell you as long as the Orions were watching. Just like you couldn't tell me."

She knew it was true but it didn't alleviate her anger; she had been duped. The bridge of her nose flushed and her eyes narrowed.

"You pull something like that on me again during a mission and I'll make _sure_ you live to regret it."

He had no answer to that. Turning, she walked away from him.

His nose smarted. He knew he should be regretting his decision to stay but somehow…he didn't. He smiled and fell back onto the deck.

* * *

"An engineer, huh?" Vesta teased. "You don't seem like the usual engineering type. You know—boring." She smiled at Taurik, who raised an eyebrow. He was almost certain that this jibe was intended as friendship. Her antennae seemed to say so, anyway. 

Jack grinned and drained his glass. Aside from Una, his new shipmates were very likable. "Yep, an engineer. Engineering is a really big thing in my family. My father works out at Utopia Planitia—my great-grandfather was actually the Chief Engineer on the first Enterprise."

"Montgomery Scott?" Asked Taurik, puzzled.

"No, the NX-01—the _first_ Enterprise," Jack told him. "How about you?" he asked Taurik.

"I was supposed to be a diplomat," Taurik confided. "Like my father. He was the ambassador to Andoria for many years."

Vesta looked suddenly chagrined. "Andoria? You've been to my homeworld?"

Taurik nodded. "And it's lovely," he told her—in Andorian. She was dumbfounded. Secretly, Taurik was glad—but he didn't want her to squirm too much. "Your mapping project was brilliant," he said, still in Andorian. "We were lucky you thought of it."

Vesta seemed suddenly very interested in her glass...but Taurik saw that she did not look particularly angry either.

"Huh? Keep it to Standard, please!" Japel nudged the Vulcan, practically knocking him off his chair.

"So what exactly happened to your nose, Anderson?" Vesta changed the subject. This time it was Jack who squirmed.

"Ahhhh…well, I…"

"Ran into something?" Vesta asked.

"Something like Lt. Magis' fist?" Japel could hardly keep a straight face.

"I don't think she's forgiven me yet."

"She will." It was Taurik, surprisingly, who offered Jack words of reassurance. "She will realize you were doing your duty and come to respect it."

Jack wasn't so sure, no matter how confident the Vulcan sounded.

"You knew her on Enterprise, didn't you?" Vesta asked.

Taurik nodded.

"So is it true?" Vesta leaned in slightly.

"Is _what_ true?" Japel wanted to know.

"You know—that she's from…that she was born in…"

"Yes." A voice came from beside the table. Una stood there, coolly regarding her colleagues, hands on hips. "I was born…in 1971."

They stared at her, not quite knowing what to say. Una looked them over one by one, her eyes coming to rest on Jack. He met her eyes defiantly.

Unexpectedly, she smiled. "Buy me a drink, sailor," she tapped Japel on the shoulder, "and I'll tell you all about it." They laughed, breaking the tension. Una sat down next to them-her new shipmates.

* * *

A/N: Aha! Yes! Una is from the 20th century! No, I was not born in 1971 (I'm younger!). I chose it because she would have been in her late teens in the late 1980s. I have her character coming from a very interesting era—just before the end of the Soviet state, before Challenger blew up, before technology was the all-encompassing mass of cell phones, PDAs, and laptop computers it is today. She represents the fans to me—all the people who watched Trek and wondered: is that ever going to be possible? For Una, it is. Anyway, we know Starfleet eventually learns how to time travel from Enterprise...I predict they start experimenting with this officially sometime in the late 24th century :) 


End file.
